Le Tour du Mont Blanc 2

DAY 5: COURMAYEUR TO RIFUGIO BONATTI

The scenery was at its most magnificent on this stage.  The hike is described as the Tour du Mont Blanc because you are walking around Mont Blanc, which is always snow-capped and is the highest mountain in Western Europe.  However this doesn’t really tell the whole story because in fact you are walking around a whole mountain range that includes other mountains that are also high, rugged, rocky and craggy.  We spent much of this beautiful sunny day walking along the Italian, north eastern side of the Mont Blanc mountain range.  The photo opportunities were endless.

A group of French hikers whom we later shared a room with at La Lechere participated in a photo swap.  After I handed him back his 7D he kindly said of my 30D 'oh your's is the same'!

First views of the face of Mt Blanc from the Italian side

Entrance to the road tunnel that runs beneath Mt Blanc linking Courmeyeur and Chamonix

Little lamb newly born.  The mother was still in labour with the next one. Mignon.

 

We were surprised by the huge number of children who were hiking, including some who were very young.  It was a Friday during the summer holidays and it seems that many Italian families were out for a very big day hike.  We were also surprised by the number of parents hiking over some high mountain passes with very young babies in dad’s specially constructed back pack. 

Although the climb at the start of the day was very steep, the rest of the day was not too bad and we arrived at Rifugio Bonatti by 3pm.  Along the way we found a nice spot to have our picnic while admiring the Mont Blanc mountain range in front of us.

Visitor whilst having lunch

Looking up the valley towards Col du Ferret which we crossed the next day

Not sure how Blue works as a camoflague colour except on ice.

Retreating glacier

Odd to see new growth at the bottom of the trunk

I love these photos where you see a person (David - at bottom right)) to give you a sense of the enormous scale

A track to the clouds

 

We had enough time to shower and enjoy coffee and hot chocolate with our Australian and Canadian friends. 

Rifugio Bonatti also used the token system that we’d experienced a couple of days earlier at Rifugio Elisabetha.  Dale had another bad experience when he only got 30 seconds of hot water.  Luckily he went first because he gave me some good advice about keeping the water pressure low and as a result I got a nice 2 minute shower of dribbling hot water. 

This was the first night that we slept in a large dormitory of 20 people.  It didn’t go too badly thanks to our ear plugs and Dale decided to turn his early morning sleeping difficulties into an advantage by getting up and taking some sunrise photos.  He got some great shots of the rising sun shining onto Mont Blanc and its siblings.   We also managed to get some good sunset photos the night before.

Refuge Bonatti

At least this one had a vaulted ceiling, adding to the available oxygen

In Italy the TMB was marked by these yellow triangles with a 1

Zoom in on the glacier opposite Refuge Bonatti

Sunset looking back towards Courmeyeur

Sunrise, the rays just starting to hit Mt Blanc

Sunrise, now with more light but still a lovely pink tinge

Et voila, It's all over for another day

 

DAY 6: RIFUGIO BONATTI TO LA FOULY

Saturday was sunny and clear but we knew that it would likely be one of the long and difficult days of the tour.  We walked 18 kms and had a net height gain of 895 metres and loss of 1410 metres.  The height gain doesn’t sound too bad but over 500 metres was gained in only 3 kms. 

Aig de L'Eveque

One last look at Mt Blanc until we come back around the other side in France

Refuge Elena perched precariously at the head of the valley



Refuge Elena, dwarfed

Nearly at the Grand Col Ferret

A look back at the Val Ferret except that it is still called Val Ferret on the other side of the Col!

 

It was the steepest climb we’d experienced and it was very windy into the bargain.  When we made it to the Grand Col Ferret it was impossible to stay there and enjoy the views because it was so cold and windy. 

It's cold up here!

The Grand Col Ferret is the border between Italy and Switzerland.  As soon as we found a less windy spot on the Swiss side we found somewhere to sit to have our lunch.  After lunch it was onwards with the steep descent to our gite which was a couple of kilometres short of La Fouly.  The descent was so steep in some points that we came across some mountain bikers who were reduced to walking their bikes up the path. 

What a life

Val Ferret mark 2 was also very pretty

We arrived the Gite La Lechere exhausted but we had a lovely evening at this charming small gite.  There were only 9 guests.  In addition to Dale and me there was an Italian guy and a group of 6 French hikers that we had been meeting along the route over the previous couple of days. 

The highlight of the evening was the authentic raclette (melted cheese) that we were served for dinner.  There was an older guy helping out at the gite and he spoke very good English so he was delegated to explain to Dale and I and the Italian guy, how we should approach eating our raclette.  The raclette was placed on each of our plates.  Next a little cloth sack of potatoes was placed on the table as well as some cornichons, pickled onions and salad.  We were told that we should eat the raclette with the potatoes and that we could use some pepper but definitely not any sauces.  We were also told that we could ask for as much extra cheese as we would like.  It was delightful.  We had 3 servings of cheese and lost count of the number of potatoes that we ate. Dale spotted the special cheese melting machine that was being used.  A wheel of cheese had been divided in two and placed into two cradles of a machine that swung one half under a griller.  Once the cheese on top was melted it was swung away from the griller and skimmed off while the other half was swung under the griller. 

One of the French guys had to point out that he’d had 4 servings and that les Australiens could only manage 3.  Dale pointed out that Australian doctors are very nasty and keep telling us that too much cheese is bad for our health.  But really – like we were ever going to beat the French in a cheese eating contest.

We also had a lovely evening talking to the Italian guy, who was from Sicily and encouraged us to hike there.  He told us that he had hiked up Mt Etna twice and that you need to camp there because there are no refuges.  I would love to visit Sicily but might give hiking up an active volcano a miss.

 

DAYS 7 & 8: LA FOULY TO CHAMPEX-LAC AND REST DAY IN CHAMPEX-LAC

Sunday was another beautifully sunny day for the easiest day of tour.  We walked about 15kms along the hillside above the valley floor.  The path was quite a way of above the river that runs through the valley and we walked through forest and there were alpine flowers lining the path.  Dale put his macro lens on and as a result there were lots of photos taken of flowers.  These will be posted in a separate blog entry.

 

 

Not sure they got a planning permit for this

We once asked out Swiss friend Manuela about St Bernards, and she claimed complete ignorance of their role as a rescue dog.  So when this bus drove past, I just had to take a snap.

We also walked through two charming little villages and took the opportunity to stop and have lunch and a coffee. 

After a week of only water that brown sugary drink can be quite soothing

The final hour or so required a strenuous climb but the reward was arriving at stunning Champex-Lac where would also be having our rest day (or jour de repos).  The track up to Champex-Lac has been ‘decorated’ with carvings of mushrooms and the local fauna.  Along the way we kept meeting a British family who led me to believe that Australia was performing quite well in the 4^th test (with a smirk on his face).  Of course, by the time I managed to get a score the following day we’d had a huge batting collapse and lost.



 

Bouquetin

Anatomical Squirrel?

   

A hog



God knows what this is supposed to be

A Kangarabbit?

  

Mushroom tug of war?  Insert joke about who will be the champignon here.

Our gite in Champex-Lac was actually part of a restaurant, which had 4 rooms above the restaurant and we were the only guests for both nights.  The madame who ran the place was very nice and we enjoyed our 3 course dinner each night.  However, the place was also something of a bar and madame would leave at 9pm, leaving the young waiting staff to close up later.  On the first night there was quite a lot of noise but we fell asleep exhausted from many days of hiking.  We were awoken about 1am by noise and thumping from downstairs.  It turned out there was a soccer game table immediately below our room and the table was being moved around as people were playing and then there was the cheering and shouting that went along with it.  Dale went downstairs and managed to shut the whole thing down.  Unfortunately the following night wasn’t a whole lot better but we went for the ear plugs much earlier and the partying ended a little earlier.

Hotel Rendez-vous.  The name should have been enough of a warning.

Beautiful view from our room

Champex-Lac is a beautiful lake with a little town running along one side.  On our rest day we spent an amusing hour by hiring a ‘pedalo’ and pedalling our way around the lake taking pictures.  We also walked around the lake and found a very interesting little waterfall that was feeding the lake.

A wolf pack made from chicken wire floating in the middle of the lake

 

Champex-Lac also has a beautiful alpine botanical garden, where we came across the most unusual thing, a sphinx butterfly.  It hovers above flowers and has a long proboscis.  It made us think of a humming bird.  It was also most unusual for us to be wandering around so happily among swarms of bees.

Sphynx Butterfly on the job

 

Of course the best part of the rest day was sampling the wares at the local patisserie.

As we were having a rest day we lost contact with many of the people that we had been crossing paths with up to that point.  Fortunately we ran into the Canadians Tom and Jeanette on the evening before our rest day and we were able to say our goodbyes.  John and Helen also had a rest day in Champex-Lac so we continued the hike with them.

While in Champex-Lac we had access to English speaking television and were able to get news of the first Australian election debate.  We are very glad to be out of the country and are not looking forward to returning to Australia with Mr Abbot as prime minister. [We have actually managed to vote as we had the voting papers sent to our address in Lyon and they arrived and have been filled in and sent off.  So much fun filling in the Victorian Senate voting form below the line with there being 97 candidates!!]. I wonder what our chances might be of getting British (Dale) or German (me) citizenship.  If we have to have a conservative prime minister I think I would prefer that it were David Cameron or Angela Merkel.

Pink fluffy clouds make everything better

Next time: Flower Photo Gallery.  Come on, you know you can't wait for it.