Previous
Thursday July 3, 2014
Leukerbad, Martigny, and Champex
Friday July 4, 2014
Hiking from Champex to Trient
Next
Saturday July 5, 2014
Hiking from Trient to
Le Tour, then bus & train to Zermatt
6:22am
Pension au Plein Air, Champex Lac
Friday morning the weather was decidely overcast. It was one of
those days where you were pretty sure you'd get rained on if you were
crazy enough to hike up into the mountains.
I started walking up the street to find the Tour de Mont Blanc, which
overlaps Haute Route in this area. I soon found the ski lift up
to Grand Plans along with the parking lot for the lift. There
were signs literally everywhere pointing out different trails, but I
couldn't find my trail.
I also knew that several trails in the area would end up going up the
Val d' Arpette, but I wanted the straightest most direct trail. I
finally got out the GPS which told me that I'd somehow missed the
trailhead I walked back down the road and finally noticed the
sign
telling me to walk up the paved road toward Grand Plans. A few
hundred feet up the road another sign told me to turn right onto a
trail that went under the Grand Plans ski lift. Soon the trail
went up into the trees and ran along a bisse (mountain irigation
canal).
6:49am
After a while the bisse
turned
into a creek and the trail was difficult to find. I had the turn
on
the GPS a few more times, which told me the trail followed the creek
uphill. Finally the trail merged with a two track dirt road, so
route finding was no longer a challenge.
7:18am
7:21am
Looking back down the valley toward Champex.
7:33am
7:51am
For perhaps 20 or 30 minutes I believed this false summit may be the
real summit. I knew that I hadn't climbed or hiked anywhere near
enough for this to be the summit, but it was certainly heartbreaking
when I got to the top of this and couldn't even determine where the
pass was.
7:58am
Looking back down the valley toward Champex.
The road on the right goes up to the top of Grand Plans.
8:27am
The trail behind me goes up toward Glacier d'Arpette.
8:33am - same spot at last picture, just looking up the trail toward
Fenêtre d'Arpette. You still can't see the pass from here.
While I was alone for perhaps the first hour of the hike, I had now
caught up to a few parties of hikers.
9:46am
Looking back down the valley toward Champex. This was the start
of the rocky terrian I had been warned about. It didn't strike me
as anything very challenging - almost no trail would to big a challenge
compared to Monday's deathmarch.
9:46am
I could finally see the entire trail and Fenêtre d'Arpette.
9:54am
The snow crossing was not at all dificult, especially compared to the
crossings I'd made earlier this week, but I still took the shortest
possible path to minimize the chances of a fall or getting my cloths
wet.
10:07am - Fenêtre d'Arpette. These two hikers were part of a
party of 8 Belgians. They were quick to remind me that Belgium
had just beaten the USA. It took me a minute to realize they were
talking about the World Cup loss last Tuesday.
10:09am - looking northeast toward Trient
10:17am - Glacier du Trient, which is really a spectacular icefall here.
10:18am The hike down the east side was a steep
scramble down a talus. I must have seen 30 to 40 hikers on the
trail - nothing like last Monday when I saw 6 people in 2 parties all
day.
10:20am - Refuge Les Grands from across the valley on full zoom
10:21am
10:41am
I was making poor progress because I stopped to take so many pictures,
but I was very happy the sun came out at just the right time so I could
get pictures in sunlight instead of overcast glare.
12:22pm - The most direct route to France follows the trail up this
unnamed valley to Refuge Les Grand before continuing over to Col de
Balme. I had seriously considered hiking this route to save a
day, but decided that I didn't need another all day deathmarch like
Monday. I also didn't want to get rained on, and I also knew I
wouldn't be able to get to the lift on the French side before it
closed, so I'd be hiking all the way down the hill. I also risked
missing the last bus out of Le Tour.
12:22pm - I love the blue colors of the glacier. I assume that
the blue would never had been visible in bright sunlight.
12:30pm
12:40pm - Chalet du Glacier - the bridge over the glacier runoff is
visible in the background on the left. You can drive up
a paved road most of the way up to the Chalet on the other side of the
valley.
12:47pm - obligatory beer at the Chalet. I had finally caught up
to the Belgians again (not pictured). They were headed across the
bridge to hike up to Refuge Les Grands and over to Col de Balme.
They asked me to follow them but I declined.
1:02pm Bisse. I didn't
run into too many hikers on this path.
1:14pm Bisse, looking back up
the mountain.
1:22pm - Looking up the valley to tomorrow's hike and Col de Balme, the
final high pass on my reverse Haute Route.
1:49pm
The hike down seemed to take forever. It took me nearly 4 hours
to hike down 5 miles and 1400m vertical, but I had stopped plenty of
times to take plenty of pictures.
1:57pm - I'm finally in Trient. There are supposed to be two
hotels in Trient,
but I had no idea where they were. I saw La Peute across the
valley on the way down and decided to skip it - it appearred to be
nothing more than a few homes and barns.
3:03pm
The two hotels in Trient are side by side at the bottom of the
village. The Auberge Mont-Blanc Trient looked quite run down and
had a large number of suitcases stacked outside, presumably for a
party that was arriving later in the day. I decided to spend the
extra 10CHF to stay at the Hotel La Grande Ourse, which had clearly
been renovated recently. The exterior was resufaced and painted,
while the
entire interior was completely refurnished. I splurged to get a
room to myself again instead of spending the night in a dorm
room. I had arrived relatively early in the day, so I hiked back
up to see the church and cemetary. Almost all the headstones had
the same 3 family names on them. The town had no other businesses
I
could discern beyond the hotels, or at least no other businesses that
are actually open more than a few hours a week.
3:04pm
3:46pm
I took a much needed shower. The newly refurbished hotel missed a
few details, like soap dispensers in the shower stalls.
Unfortunately they only had Swiss outlets, and my generic European
adapters didn't fit into them, so I couldn't recharge my phone.
After a while it rained lightly. The World Cup quarterfinals
between Germany and France were on, and many of the guests crowded the
bar and common area to watch the first half before dinner was served at
7pm. I ate with a German couple and a married Swiss woman who was
hiking part of the TMB alone. The Germans poked fun at the way Swiss
speak German, accusing them of speaking it in a sing-song
fashion. I was happy that everyone at my table spoke English so I
could
participate in the conversation. Dinner was salad, local fish and
rice, and local apricot pie for desert, and it may have been the best
meal I ate in Switzerland - it was fantastic.
Meanwhile....
Kent visited Brig on his way back to Zermatt...
Previous
Thursday July 3, 2014
Leukerbad, Martigny, and Champex
Friday July 4, 2014
Hiking from Champex to Trient
Next
Saturday July 5, 2014
Hiking from Trient to
Le Tour, then bus & train to Zermatt
