Outdoor Mix Festival

In mid-May every year, I go to a sports and music festival located in a town called Embrun. Embrun is a pretty, 2.5 hour drive through the mountains from Grenoble. It's also right next to a lake, more precisely the Lac de Serre-Ponçon. 

It's a cute town and a nice spot to relax. My friends and I like camping there, and for this year's festival, we rented a couple little bungalows in a campsite. They were perfect with inside space devoted to beds and storage and a nice large terrace equipped with all the kitchen essentials. It still felt enough like camping since the toilets and showers were down the road, but it was a good alternative to tent camping since it rained a bit everyday.

The lake is a nice idyllic spot in a mountain setting. In May, it's still too cold for me to swim, but there's a few brave souls that try. Later in the year, it warms up nicely. In fact, two years ago we were camping there and there was an inflatable obstacle course on the water. That was fun!

Outdoor Mix is a sports and music festival that happens annually towards the end of the school year (I've finished my exams and am doing a summer internship at the moment) and is a time to relax and enjoy some fresh air. It also always happens on a holiday weekend, so it's nice to take advantage of three days off to travel a bit. During the day, there are extreme sports to watch, including rock climbing, kayaking, kite surfing, bmx and dirt bike competitions, longboard races, and my particular favorite, jumpline. Jumpline is a relatively new sport, where people use a slackline to do acrobatic tricks. Check it out :

The sports competitions last all weekend long, with the finals usually on Sunday or Monday, and competitors come from all over the world. This year there were BMX riders from France, the USA, Colombia, Brazil and more for example. At night, there are concerts to check out with live music starting at 8pm. My group likes to check out a concert one night, but stay and hang out at our campsite for the other nights we're there. 

I really enjoy this festival and I expect it won't be the last time I go. It's a great combination of friends, camping, mountains, interesting sports to watch, music to dance to and laughs to be had.