A nice but not terribly memorable walk today, lacking any of the jaw-dropping vistas of other days. 10.41 miles, 2634ft elevation gain.
Some thoughts about the Hotel Glacier in Champex. Nice location, nice evening meal, tired room, and not terribly helpful staff at check in. Liked this use of silver birch in the dining room!
After a rather basic breakfast, we left at 8am…
Down through some little villages again, though none as pretty as the ones we walked through yesterday.
This first cafe was just too early to stop at, even for us!
As we started climbing, the views got better…
Dave had hoofed it ahead of me, as usual, to get a good workout in rather than plodding with me. I paused to take this photo of the meadow to the left of the path, and then continued on to a stream ahead. Little did I know that in fact the trail was supposed to head across this meadow. Dave missed it, I missed it, and a group of another 5 people missed it too. I was so surprised when I reached the stream to see Dave heading back down the trail toward me, having realized he’d missed the turn. So we headed back–for me just a short distance–and took a much less defined path. Turns out, either would have worked…the more defined path stayed mostly level and then climbed steeply, whereas our path climbed steeply and then stayed mostly level in the higher meadow.
Our path was quite a scramble at times…
And always steep. This photo looks back at the final climb across the grass from the left to the right on a series of switchbacks.
Phew, up to the contour path at last!
Rain\thunderstorms were forecast for today, and it looked for a moment like they might happen given the clouds building up. But no…as has happened almost every day, the promised rain stayed away.
A much more industrial valley below. Martigny is one of the towns–I’ll have to look at a map to identify any others.
We had planned to stop at this farm for refreshments, but the fly-encrusted cattle were right beside the cafe. Flies were more annoying on the whole walk today than any other day, probably because of the low elevation, and I just didn’t want to linger. So we kept going.
A view down to Martigny. I was a bit irritated to see a fly in the photo, but then realized it represented the day rather well!
Once we crested the top, the nature of the path became much more interesting and pleasant…and mostly downhill, often steeply.
Not the best choice of snack for a sunny hike!!!
Almost at the bottom of the descent, we came to Col de la Forclaz and a lovely cafe.
We had coffee\ice cream\sparkling water.
Then the walk down to Trient. A very dramatic break in the path here, with extensive work underway to reinforce the hillside.
We took a shortcut that went very steeply downhill, via some rickety steps that made the South West Coast Path steps seem very sophisticated!
Then to a modern walkway over the busy road, complete with advertising for the upcoming Ultra-TMB at the end of the August (the one where they run the 100 miles in 1-3 days.
Finally, Trient in sight…
And the hotel: La Grande Ourse. Reviews weren’t that great for it, so I was braced for disappointment. But our room is lovely and wifi is blazingly fast (albeit only accessible while sitting in the lobby!) and although bathrooms are communal, the shower was great.
Edited to add: before dinner, an impressive storm blew through–heavy rain, high wind. It’s hard to tell in the photos how wild it got, but the view up the road just shows grey. The buildings, the hillside, the mountains beyond all obscured by grey clouds and downpours. By contrast, right before the storm arrived, you can see the trees on the far hillside.
