Interesting place last night. Called Hotel De L’Ourse, but very much more like a hostel or refuge, in that many rooms were dormitory style, and all bathroom facilities were shared. The food at dinner was quite good, but not as much as multi-day hikers typically eat (plenty for me, though). Wifi was blindingly fast, but only in the lobby. And the whole place was very noisy, with echoing hallways and banging doors. Luckily, as usually happens at these places that serve hikers, everyone seemed to turn in early. So I got a decent night sleep. Breakfast was limited–no eggs, mostly just bread and cereals.
After breakfast, off we go, trying to get ahead of hoards of other people.
The church in Trient is lovely!
]There was a campground at the top of the village (we haven’t seen many) as well as a far more primitive refuge consisting of a platform in a barn-like building, where maybe 15-20 people sleep side by side. Not my cup of tea!
Then the start of the climb, and our first view of the Trient Glacier. If we’d taken the high route yesterday, we’d have walked beside it. We heard rumors today that last night’s thunderstorm (that reminds me–I must add that to yesterday’s blog post!) washed out the low route via Bovine, requiring everyone to take the high route. Wow!
Looking back toward Trient after emerging from the steep switchbacks in the forest.
The looking forward to Col de Balme ahead.
Found a few patches of left over hailstones from last night’s storm. They were impressively large.
Refuge du Col de Balme on the horizon, which we hope means the end of the climb and the beginning of the coffee!
Looking back at the switchbacks we’ve conquered.
Oh look!!! Mont Blanc again–haven’t seen it since we left Refugio Bonatti.
Oh never mind, NOW we see Mont Blanc! Although in this photo it looks like the smaller of the two peaks, in reality as you walk toward it, you can see it’s far more massive than the closer one.
After coffee (and a drone flight) we paused again to take in the spectacle of it all. The basin in front of us is a ski resort, but surprisingly attractive in the summer too. We could have taken a chair down from here, but it wouldn’t have landed us anywhere useful, and anyway, we had another peak to climb! Yes, a two-summit day.
In the meantime, I do love contour paths!
Men at work installing a snow fence–not sure if it’s to control drifting snow or avalanches.
Lots of down, but then we’re heading for that dark mass on the far hillside.
The climb back up was increasingly rocky. Makes for an interesting scramble, and the view was ever more breathtaking.
We stopped for cheese, nuts, and smarties.
Then started the descent. Somewhere around 1/4 of the way down, I abruptly ran out of every ounce of energy and goodwill I had. One minute I was thrilled with the view and enjoying the challenge of picking my way through rocks, then I just wanted to be done (for the day? for the trip? who knows!) Not sure I remember such a sudden change of mood before.
But it’s not like you have any choice–you just keep going. I wasn’t a horrible grump, but Dave described it well: my puff was gone!
First serious steps we’ve seen on the TMB. Although they were in far worse repair than the South West Coast Path ones, they mostly were reasonably sized and spaced for me.
We eventually reached the treeline and headed down switchbacks that were very reminiscent of trails in Washington State. Then finally to civilization, first a bit of road walking, then dirt track walking–a mile or so into Argentiere.
Checked into our hotel. Nice hosts, but a very hot room on the top floor in the noisy center of town.
Because we knew we’d probably take the train (in various ways) the next day, we checked out the train station.
Dinner–a set menu after having been presented with the full menu. So mean! You can see from my face that I’m really DONE with today, though in fact the food turned out to be quite good.
By the way, the two women to my right, closest to the wall, are the Ultras–the one in teal is the woman who previously ran the Ultra TMB in 40 hours. Her partner across the table sounds like she’s been the support for such crazy adventures for many years. We enjoyed crossing paths with them several times over the past few days.
Good night, Mont Blanc! I’ll try to be in a better mood tomorrow.
