Sunday June 29, 2014
Geneva, Sion, and Cabane de Prafleuri
Next
Monday June 30, 2014
Cabane de Prafleuri to Verbier
Geneva Best Western Astoria lobby and elevator
Our room. These turned out to be the biggest beds we had on the
trip.
Our very tentative plan was for Kent to climb Zinalrothorn while I
finished the Haute Route. Sunday morning it was raining in
Geneva, but the forecast said the weather should be decent on Monday
before more bad weather came in later on Tuesday. The rest of the
week's weather forecast looked questionable at best. It was also
supposed to be cold Sunday night / Monday morning, but the snow level
was supposed to be considerably higher than the Cols I would be
hiking. According to the tentative plan, we'd go to Sion
together, explore the town for a few hours, then go our separate
ways. The last bus from Sion up to Dixence, Le Chargeur left at
2:15pm, so we'd need to leave Geneva early if I wanted to have any time
at all in Sion. Since we were jet lagged anyway this wasn't a
real problem. The hotel's breakfast was fantastic and included
sausage and bacon - this was the best breakfast we encountered on the
trip. We bought our Swiss Half Fare cards and train tickets and
arrived in Sion shortly after 9am. It was raining lightly so Kent
tried to buy an umbrella. We discovered that nothing is open in
Sion on Sunday morning except the newpaper stand, and they don't sell
umbrellas. We hiked up to the Basilique de Valère
View from near the Basilique de Valère
The Basilique de Valère was absolutely stunning. Parishoners sat
in silent contemplation waiting for services to start. The priest
was quite friendly. I didn't know it at the time, but the organ
at the basica is one of the oldest organs that still plays in the world.
I hate it when that happens...
There's a wine garden conveniently located between the Basilique de
Valère and Château de Tourbillon. We got ours to go and proceeded
to
hike up to the Château.
Basilique de Valère
Kent's pic
Kent's pic
Château de Tourbillon
Basilique de Valère from Château de Tourbillon
Before we knew it, it was time to part ways. We both questioned
the sanity of our plans in light of the weather but decided to proceed
and hope for the best. Kent caught a train to Zermatt, and I
caught the bus to Dixence, Le Chargeur.
There were three other hikers on our bus that spoke only French - other
than that the bus was empty.
Sion from the bus.
I rearranged my pack after I got off the bus, and by the time I was
finished the other three hikers were nowhere to be found. I
assumed they had caught the lift up that I had just missed.
Perfect weather for a hike in the mountains...
Fortunately it wasn't raining when I got to the top of the lift,
thought it looked like it would rain at any minute.
The lake level was dramatically lower than when I was here in August
two years ago. Late May is typically the lowest level for the
lake, while August is the highest level.
It started to sprinkle before I reached the tunnel. I had already
decided to hike in the tunnel if there was any threat of rain - I did
not want to hike to Verbier tomorrow in cold wet clothes. Keeping
dry today was
a key part of my plan. The tunnel had a sign that I believe said
"keep out" - it had a hiker with a red circle around it. I
ignored
it and proceeded inside - we had hiked down through the tunnel in 2012
without incident. The bottom of the tunnel had a sheet of ice for
the first hundred feet or so. It was quite disconcerting hiking
alone into the 1km long unlit tunnel. My biggest fear was that
the other end of
the tunnel was locked shut or blocked by snow. I knew that they
use the tunnel to supply the Cabane since we saw a truck drive up the
tunnel in 2012, so I assumed the tunnel couldn't be blocked by snow
this late in the season. It essentially rained inside the tunnel
though I managed
to stay dry. There was a very loud sound of rushing water deep
inside the tunnel - a water canal came in from the side of the tunnel
and was redirected below the tunnel. I believe I also saw the
water source for the Cabane itself in the tunnel. Finally I saw
light at the end of the tunnel and was overjoyed... until I saw it was
the reflection of my light on the closed tunnel door. I was
overjoyed again when I was able to open the mansized door in the closed
tunnel doors and enter Prafleuri. It took another 10 minutes or
so to hike up to the Cabane.
The trail up to the Col de Prafleuri starts left of the garage and
proceeds pretty much straight up the hill.
I was a little distressed to see snow on the Col des Roux, which we had
crossed in a thunderstorm in 2012. It had
not occurred to me that there would be serious amounts of snow on the
trails in late June.
It is worth noting that the Cabane only opened the day before I arrived.
I checked in to the Cabane at about 4:30pm and had little to do other
than wait for dinner at 7pm. The hostess spoke English, but the
other two hosts and guests only spoke French. It was fairly
lonely being essentially the only English speaker in the
building.
I was placed in room 3, the same room we used in 2012. The two
French hikers were already in the lower bunk of the downstairs of room
3. The hostess said I could take either the upper bunk or the
loft. I decided to take the loft, which had four bunks. I
didn't even recall the loft from 2012 since we didn't use it.
Perhaps 45 to 60 minutes after I arrived, the three hikers from the bus
arrived at the Cabane. They got room 2. All the other rooms
were locked. I hoped that perhaps I could get a room to myself to
avoid either disturbing others or having others disturb me since I
sleep poorly, but it was not to be.
The hostess pointed out the window, and I saw that she was pointing to
an ibex across the valley near the garage. I'm not sure if it was
Kev,
our ibex from two years ago, but I pretended it was. This was the
first test of the 30x zoom on my new Canon 700SX camera, and I was not
disappointed.
I asked the hostess about trail conditions. She indicated that
there was snow up to knee deep up to the first col, but that there was
no snow on the second or third cols. This was somewhat reassuring
as I had no desire to hike 10 miles through the snow - I figured I
could handle some snow though I was not at all excited about it.
Eventually a German couple arrived as well, so there were eight of us
for dinner. They were also placed in room 3, though no one else
knew I was in the loft since no one else had seen me or my gear in the
room. The German man spoke English and he spoke to me some during
dinner, but other than that I felt pretty isolated. I learned from the
German couple that they planned to climb the Prafleuri Glacier, but
they weren't planning to start until about 10am since weather was
supposed to improve throughout the day and they didn't think it would
take them long to hike the glacier.
After dinner I passed out from jet lag at perhaps 8pm - I think I was
the first one to sleep.
I woke up at about 9:30pm and went downstairs. Everyone else was
now sound asleep. It was dusk and it was snowing lightly, which
was not good at all for my plans to hike tomorrow. I was then
very, very surprised to see mountain
bikers riding up to the Cabane at dusk.
They were eight British accountants, according to the matching shirts
they wore. They had 'ridden' their bikes all the way from
Verbier. By 'ridden' I
mean generally had carried the bikes since there was far too much snow
to ride a bike. The 'trail' is also completely unsuited to bikes
according to all reports I had read - much of it is a talus field with
no trail, requirring some route finding.
They were dressed in shorts, out of food, they were all freezing and
soaked to the bone, their bikes were covered in snow, and for the most
part they were obnoxious. The gentleman in the
right foreground in the picture above had 'arranged' this trip.
He explained that he had called the Cabane and was told that you can't
make reservations, but that you can get a meal any time before
10pm. I
quickly explained this was all wrong - dinner was served at 7pm, the
common
room was now locked so there is no food, everyone was already fast
asleep,
and I had no idea where the staff was. Also the rooms were all
locked so there was no easy place for them to sleep. Lastly, the
showers run on tokens you need to buy from the staff so no, you can't
take a shower at 10pm either. They proceeded to pound on doors
all around the building to try to get fed but to no avail.
Fortunately they didn't appear to wake the other guests though I'm not
sure how since they were loud enough to raise the dead.
Before long there was a fresh dusting of snow on everything.
They indicated that the snow was up to waist deep in spots. They
also said there was lots of snow - more than just over the first
col. This
was mixed news - I was quite concerned about the about of snow they
reported, but also figured if these complete idiots could carry bikes
across the snow in shorts, surely I could hike across the snow in
proper gear. I should
also be able to easily follow their tracks across the snow. They
had reservations in Les Haudères for Monday evening. I explained
that the trail ahead was most likely just as hard as the trail they had
just taken, which turned out to be not quite true. I also
explained that the trail down to the dam was all downhill, relatively
short, easy to navigate, and that there was food at the hotel. I
also knew that they could catch a bus to Les Haudères, but I had no
idea how they would deal with the bikes.
Eventually I reluctantly told these gentlemen they could sleep in the
loft with
me. At least five of them slept in the loft built for three and
at least one more slept on the floor downstairs in our room. I
took pity on them and shared some of my food. They were packed
in, but they were careful not to crowd me. I slept quite poorly,
but I can't really blame these clowns since I sleep poorly on vacation
much of the time anyway.
