Tour du Mont Blanc - Day 6 - Last Day, hobbling into Chamonix

Day 6 Stats:

Distance: 12.55 miles 

Height gain: 1126 meters

Descent: 1140 meters

Trient to Chamonix via Col du Balme

Our last day! So bittersweet. I'm so glad to be able to say I finished this and yet so sad that it's over. I'm already thinking about what hike to do next...

We start the day with breakfast at 7 and out the door by 8. The sun is out but the deep valley is still cool and in the shade. We meander through town toward the mountains that frame the deep valley with the sound of cow bells echoing off the hillsides. I'm so happy to be in Switzerland on a sunny day, starting the day by listening to cow bells. I can think of no where I would rather be! 

The ascent started with another tough river crossing and proceeded steeply up the side of the valley. We climbed for a few hours and 3k before popping out of the trees into the snow fields. From here you could see the Col but it took another hour and half to reach it. The snow was very soft in the warm sun but easy to walk on. I did forget to put sunscreen on my legs and finished the day with some nice tan lines and slight sunburn on the calves. 

Once at the top of the Col, we crossed back into France. The Col was very busy and we looked down on the village of Argentier. There was a tram and chair lift to the top and lots of people were having a day of leisure in the sun. There were picnicking couples, women wearing heels and a loud crew of older French people popping champagne bottles and taking shots of schnapps. It was a party!

Rather than take the chairlift town, we decided to keep walking. We were on a ski area so the trail wasn't very easy to follow. There were little trails everywhere. We managed to make our way towards Aiguillette des Posettes and around the base. We decided against summiting, mostly because I was worried about the stress of the descent on my knees. We had a sharp descent down into the valley along a rocky trail and soon left the ski area and entered the forest preserve again and the trees. We took the final descent slowly, appreciating the scenery and breathing in the mountain air. We stopped in Tre-la Champ for a beer before proceeding into Argentier and catching the bus to Chamonix. It was an incredible journey. It was challenging but a hike that anyone could do. The scenery was unlike anything I have seen before. When you combine mountain meadows, fresh water, wild flowers, cows with bells, cheese, wine, beer and friendly people, you feel like you have found paradise. 

For more pictures and to follow the rest of my travels, check out @wanderingryverlily on Instagram. 

Tour du Mont Blanc - Day 5 - Helicopters!

Day 5 Stats:

17.2k

700+ meters ascent

840 meters descent 

We woke up early and the realization that we had no luggage hit us quickly. My attempt to save my disposing contacts in a glass of water failed as they were dried little eye weapons of death. It was going to be a blurry day for me. I showed my husband how to brush your teeth with a towel and after washing up a bit we felt partially refreshed. Our shirts from the day before were fairly foul and I wasn't sure I could stand the smell all day. Fortunately, there was a sports store and we popped in and purchased some clean clothes. Once we felt normal again, we were off.... Our route was taking us from Champex - Lac to Trient via Bovine. 

We took off on a very leisurely stroll out of town and through the woods. We were enjoying the cool of walking in the trees as the sun shine bright on all the mountains. We passed a bee colony with hundreds of buzzing bees clouding the sky and strolled along for 4.7K to Plan de l'Au. 

At this point the trail narrowed into a mountain path and ascend steeply up the mountain. We were still in the trees and the drop off to the right was very dramatic into the gulch below. I was so happy the sun was shining and you could see the glaciers and incredible views. Given the tree cover, this would be a miserable walk in the rain and clouds. We traversed several streams. Some of them were moving quickly and were hard to navigate without getting wet. This was the true test of the water resistances of my boots. They passed the test with flying colors. My feet were cold from the water but not wet at all. I came really close to the water going over the top, no boots could keep dry if that happened! Mammut is a great brand! 

Once we neared the top, the trail traversed around the side of the mountain. The views of the Swiss Rhone valley were breathtaking. The trail leveled off and we were looking forward to lunch at the Bovine refuge. 

As we approached the refuge, a girl came running down the trail and stopped us. They had a helicopter that was delivering trees and we couldn't pass. We sat and watched the helicopter for 30 minutes or so before we could pass. As we approached the refuge, they let us know that they were closed and we couldn't have lunch there. We walked a bit further and ate the snacks from our bags and continued to watch the helicopter. 

The rest of the hike was fairly easy, another 6k into Col de la Forclaz, with some downhill and flat. The entire route was beautiful with trees, incredible views and fields of flowers. 

The last portion of the day was one of the most challenging. We had 1.5k of switch backs almost straight down the mountain  into Trient where we were staying the night. You could see it but it never seemed to get closer and my knees were in pain so the walk was slow. 

We arrived in the adorable little valley village of Trient were we were to stay the night and had one of the very best dinners of our trip, roast beef with vegetables and salad! Yummy fuel! 

Last day tomorrow. 

Tour Du Mont Blanc - Day 4 - No luggage!

Today was an early start out of Courmayeur in Italy over the border and back in to Switzerland and to Champex for the night. It wasn't a long hike day but there were multiple bus connections that we had to catch.  We were up early and packed and ready to go when the bus station opened at 8:30. We had washed some clothes the night before but some of them were still damp. Into our bags they went, wrapped in plastic shopping bags. We hoped they wouldn't be too stinky by that evening when we had a chance to hang them again. We had seen some people hiking with wet socks and underwear hanging off their bags but since they day looked rainy again, we didn't want to try that sort of public drying method.

We left Courmayeur on the first bus at 9:00 and rode for about an hour to Arnuva in the Val Ferret. The bus dropped us off in what appeared to be the middle of no where and once it drove off, we knew we were stuck. The Austrian couple that we kept running into was also on our bus so we knew we were in the right place or lost together.

We started hiking up the road / trail and after a steep 2.5K climb reached the Refuge Elena. It had already started raining at this point and we knew it would be a wet day. We didn't stop at the Refuge but did take a little peanut butter ball break. The train converged here and there was a fair amount of people headed up the next climb. The train got narrow, rocky and steep and we had a rapid 475 meter gain in the next 3K. We were on our way up to Grand Col du Ferret.

Along the way, we were overtaken by a small, skinny girl who was super tromping up the trail. She passed me like I was standing still. Her parents followed, huffing and puffing behind. Her mother stopped to get her breath by us and we had a brief conversation. They were from Minnesota on their summer break. The daughter was 11 years old and this was her first hiking experience. She was loving it and her parents were having a hard time keeping up. I could envision Heidi running with the goats through the mountain meadows... Oh to have young legs again!

Shortly after they passed us we heard a buzzing in the sky, we could see a parachute device with two men being powered by a big fan. It circled us for the next hour or so trying to gain height but stay below the cloud cover. Right before we started on the last snow field to the top, I finally spotted a Ptarmigan. He was in the process of changing color from white to brown and was sitting stoically on a rock overlooking a cliff. By the time we got to him, he was gone but the only way down was over the cliff. What a beautiful little bird.

The last push to the top of the Col was over a snow field and it was the first truly dangerous snow field we had encountered. If you slipped on this one, you had about 50 feet to catch yourself before pummeling over a cliff and down into the valley below. Thankfully the snow was warm and sticky and it was a short cross over. The clouds were low and we couldn't see as we were crossing that we were right by the top. At the top was a full production camera crew, the men buzzing about overhead (we now saw they also had cameras) and a bunch of people wearing matching shirts. It was for some type of extreme adventure race. They won't let us cross until they were done filming but once they did, we crossed over into Switzerland and started our descent.

My knees had been bugging me bad at this point and the descent is the worst, but it just kept feeling more painful every day. As I started down into Switzerland, I felt a pop in my right knee and what felt like liquid flowing internally. It got very painful and the only way to walk was with my leg fully straight and to swing my leg around, Frankenstein style. We managed to get down to the next refuge which was an old dairy farm in La Peule and by then my knee and ankle were starting to swell. We knew we didn't have much further to go that day so we decided to press on.

The final stretch was road walking for 5K down the valley and into the town of Ferret. We walked along slowly and stopped frequently. Right before we got into the town, we saw a group of high school age kids on a camp trip. They were learning how to cut down trees with axes and double saws. We stopped to watch them and as we did, I looked up to see the bus pull away ahead of us. When we got to the bus stop, we saw the next one didn't come for another two hours. Nothing in town was open and the rain was pouring down. We decided to walk to the next town, La Fouly, 2K further to see if we had better luck. After we started we ran into two american couples that were staying in La Fouly. We had a nice chat with them on the way down. It was a distraction from the knee pain.

We got into town and thankfully it stopped raining. The bus was the same wait but Glade went to find out if there was any other way down. He stopped into a sporting good store and a very nice lady, Lulu, who was repping backpacks, offered to give us a ride. She gave us a ride down to the next big town of Orsieres and we were able to catch a bus to Champex-Lac. We arrived at town at about 6:30 and once there were told our luggage never arrived. I called our tour company and they proceeded to find out what happened to our luggage.

So dirty and stinky, we went out to eat and met up with some friends of ours from the US, who had driven up from Geneva to meet us, Wade and Andrea. We had a lovely dinner and catch up but when we got back to the room, still no luggage. It had been located and would be waiting for us the following day. We didn't have clean socks or underwear, no tooth brushes, and no new contacts or contact case for me. I was also thinking about our wet stuff we had wrapped up that morning, just getting gross and stinky in the bag. Oh well, trying to get a good nights sleep and we will figure it out in the morning!

Tour du Mont Blanc - Day 3, The long Road

Day 3:

Stats: 

13 Miles walked

We woke up in our refuge camp after a fitful sleep. If you aren't use to sleeping in a sleep sheet or sleeping bag type of confinement, it can be quite hard to get your proper toss and turn down. The refuge had very nice sleeping accommodations. We were in a room with two bunks that slept four but it was just the two of us. We had an indoor bathroom down the hall with hot showers  and a flushing toilet. For backcountry set up, it was luxury. After breakfast we set off up the mountain behind the refuge. The sun was shining and the views were magnificent. The shepherd was just getting ready to move his sheep out of their night pasture and they were frolicking alongside the trail. We proceeded up a steep climb for quite a while, topping off to a flat march through the snow to the French / Italian border. Looking behind us into France was steep valleys covered in green grass and wild flowers. Looking forward into Italy was a giant flat glacial valley with a wide river bed and mountains covered in trees. We proceeded down the valley, initially through snow (with some butt sliding) and eventually onto the trail that proceeded past the ruins of old army barracks before turning into a relatively flat road that followed the river out of the valley. It looked so different from the French side of the mountain and reminded me of the large glacial valleys in  Canada. 

Once you cross over the border the language changes. The signs change and your greeting to your fellow hikers changes. In France you greeted everyone with a joyful, Bonjour! In Italy it immediately changed to Buongiorno! Or Ciao! However Glade likes to stick with his traditional German greeting of Hallo! We have started to see more and more people as we have proceeded. One Austrian couple has been along with us the entire way. They are very nice with limited amount of English so our passing conversations are always brief. 

I have always had problems with my knees and the downhills are killing me. Thank god for my cool arnica and anti-inflammatory medicine. But by the time we reached the road, I was now limping. We now had to decide to proceed on the trail up over another pass or make our way further down the road and try to catch a bus into Courmayeur. We decided to try to bus route. We walked another three miles down the road before coming to a gate and car parking. There was a bus stop a short distance further. The instructions (in Italian). Said to call for the bus but in the early season it only runs from 9-12 and 2:30-5:30. It was 2:15. We tried to call but got an voicemail. We decided to keep walking. After three more miles we came upon a small store with an older gentlemen outside. We asked if he knew if the bus was running, he didn't speak English but directed us inside the store. The lady running the store was so nice to us! She called the bus company and arranged for a pickup. We got some cold sparkling water and sat out on the bench and waiting for the bus. At this point I was limping quite bad and was in a lot of pain. Thank god we didn't have to walk the further seven miles into town! We arrived in town around 4:30 and checked into our hotel. We had time for a nice hot shower before finding a pizza place with great pizza and wine. At dinner we ended up bumping into Ard (the man from Holland with the tree trunk legs) and he entertained us with stories about his bar bike business in Amsterdam. Another good day in the books but I think I need new knees! 

Tour du Mont Blanc - Day Two, Into the Mist

Stats: 

Miles walked: 16.64

Steps: 41,313

Ascent: 1,420 meters (4658 feet)

Descent: 950 meters

We woke up on Sunday, day two to a very overcast and low cloud cover in the valley. We had stayed in Contamines, France and a lovely little hotel. It wasn't fancy but it was clean and the food was fabulous. The amount of food given at dinner was more than I could ever possibly ear in one sitting, even after hiking all day. And it was all local and fresh. We tried to get an early start and were off by 8:30. The hotel packed is amazing ham and cheese sandwiches on French baguette. The walk was initially very flat along the river up to the Notre Dame Gorge. We strolled along past a nordic track center and a play area for kids that consisted of a ropes course and slacklines. Once we reached the church, the path proceeded steeply up an old  Roman road. You could see the walls and old stone work in the road. Glade and I chatted about what they must have been doing here and who built this road and who was the guy who came over the Alps with elephants, oh ya, Hannibal.   The things you talk about when hiking. We walked along the gorge for a while, peeking over the edge every once in a while to see rushing water, carving our smooth stone into the perfect path. We crossed an old bridge built by the Romans and fortified in the 1400s. I have never seen the amount of water that I have seen during this trip. It's everywhere, in waterfalls and streams, coming out of the sky and out of glaciers. Rushing down rivers, roads and paths. Making its way, however possible down to the valley. It's cold and fresh, clear and in some parts milky with minerals. It's seems there is enough water here to take care of the entire worlds needs. 

After crossing the bridge we proceeded past some refuges and continued up. the cloud cover continued to be low and we were often walking through the mist. You would hear the music of the cow bells in the fields around you but barely be able to make out the image of the cow. It was strange and beautiful. When we first hit the snow, we came upon a group of about 5-8 people starting to cross the snow, we stayed with this group for the remainder of the climb up to the Col du Bonhomme. The visibility was very poor and everything was a white out for hours. We were just following other tracks in the snow to keep to the route. It was scary but there weren't any steep drop off and it didn't feel especially dangerous. It was just a steady long climb. One of the men leading us, Ard from Amsterdam, was wearing cut off shorts is a large man, 6'3"  with giant feet and legs like tree trunks. One of the other guys following us pointed out that his size 16 boots made the best steps in the snow (although his stride was a bit of a stretch for some of us). I wrote a poem about him:

I followed a man with legs like tree trunks into the nothingness. 

Time and space had stopped and all I could see were legs. Legs with roots pulling strong into the earth. 

The nothingness enveloped me. It enveloped us. All of us. The scared boys, the strong men, the following girls. 

But he led on, through the snow, the gray, the nothingness....

By the time we reached the Col, the wind had picked up and it was snowing. There was a small hut at the top and we all jammed in trying to adjust our clothing and grab a quick snack. By this point my phone has died due to the cold. We then proceeded over a ridge and on to another pass, Col du la Croix. At this point we could have proceeded onto Col du Fours and over the mountain to drop down into the refuge we were staying the path was covered in snow and everyone we talked to said it was unsafe in the low visibility so we proceeded the long way, down and around. We came upon Refuge Bonhomme next. This was a true Nordic refuge, with no access by road. We stopped and got out of the snow and wind and dried some of our gear. The refuge was warm and cozy with a wood fire, lots of clothes hanging space and a bucket of crocs to keep the floors dry and clean from dirty boots. We had a lovely vegetable soup and a beer before proceeding down. 

The beginning of the stretch down was still covered in snow so we were able to get on our bums and slide down. Once the snow cleared up it was a muddy trudge down the mountain into the little village of Chapieux. At this point we were exhausted but still had a 4.5k hike back up another valley to our refuge. It was the longest 4.5 miles ever! We truged and complained and kept reminding ourselves how strong we were and how strong we were getting. Right before the refuge we came upon a mobile milking station and a boy chasing individual cows through the field to get them in to be milked. Then a herd of 200+ sheep with their bells clanging and a shepherd and his dog moving them from high pastures down to the low fields for the night. Above them were a herd of ibex with their long curved horns. They were incredible. We finally reached the refuge just in time for the communial dinner. We were fed soup and stewed beef and rice and vegetables and cheese from cheery French girls with rosy cheeks. It was a fabulous end to a long day! 

Fueled by Peanut Butter Balls - Tour du Mont Blanc - Day 1

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A few years ago when I first moved to Europe, my friend Chris sent me an email link to the top hikes in Europe according to National Geographic. One of the top hikes was the Tour du Mont Blanc. It sounded amazing in the article and I really wanted to do it. I envisioned myself frolicking in high alpine meadows full of flowers, of coming upon cows with bells around their necks, and of eating cheese, cheese, cheese. I asked everyone I knew if they would do the hike with me. No one was able to take two weeks off to partake in this adventure. I finally found the "express" hike, just six days and convinced my husband that it would be a fabulous trip for us to do together (I actually threatened to go alone). 

For those of you that don't know about this trek: (from Wikipedia) The Tour du Mont Blanc or TMB is one of the most popular long-distance walks in Europe. It circles the Mont Blanc massif, covering a distance of roughly 170 kilometres (110 mi) with 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) of ascent/descent and passes through parts of Switzerland, Italy and France.

What adventure could be a better way to cap our three years in Europe? 

Today we completed day one of six: 

We departed our hotel this morning and walked for 20 minutes to the gondola. After a short gondola ride we reached the official start (for us). The sun was shining, Mont Blanc was in all her glory. We took a leisurely walk through the woods, following the wonderful signage. We soon came upon our first fields. In this field were three people and two cows. The cows were black with long horns. They had lovely red harnesses and giant bells hanging from their collars.  The people had them on a leash and were drinking wine in the sun in this flower covered meadow. I was quite taken with the scene. They motioned us over and Glade wanted to join them but I insisted we keep going. If we started drinking wine at 10 am, there was no way we would finish the hike (I know myself). From here we did quick detour to check out a glacier that had melted and had to do a quick back track to see the suspension bridge over the waterfall. We then proceeded to hike up and up and up for what seemed like hours. All along the way a coocoo bird followed us, coocooing our way along. We finally reached the top of the Col around noon and were treated to spectacular views of the valley below, weeping glaciers, cows, sheep, and marmots. It was a very steep hike down (hard on these old knees) but I was entertained by the sheep, the baby sheep and their bells. The hills were covered with the sound of ringing bells. It was amazing. After stopping for lunch at the valley chateau, we proceeded up another steep climb to another chateau. This one had the greenest grass I have ever seen. It was so lucious looking that I was tempted to try it. All around the chateau were cows with different size bells on. As they ate, moved around and chewed their cud, the bells rang and made the happiest melody.  It was beautiful. After enjoying the cows, we hiked down into the valley and finished our hike for the day. 10.5 miles today. More to come... We have five more days! 

Berlin

Anyone that has been to Berlin knows that it is a fabulous city. Full of history, art, flavor, culture and beauty. We traveled there last weekend and had possibly one of the strangest trips I have ever had. It was not a reflection on Berlin but more on us. I'll tell you about Berlin after telling you about what made our trip so strange. 

We have lived in Germany for three years and Berlin has always been on my radar. I have heard stories about the dining scene and the night life as well as seeing the place that played such an important role in history. It took me a while to convince my husband to go. It's a 5-7 hour drive from where we live and never really fit into our schedule. When we have  long weekends we tend to go someplace we need to fly to and it's just a bit too long for a regular weekend. Now that we are at the end of our time here, I had to see Berlin. I saw that our base was doing a bus trip and I though this would be perfect. One overnight in Berlin and no driving. Two weeks before the trip I got a call that the trip had changed. They were now doing a day and back. No overnight. We still decided to stick with it since this was our only chance to see Berlin. What resulted was two very tired adults (bus from midnight, arrive at 9 am, depart back at 9 pm and arrive back home at 5 am) who folded their long legs into bus seats built for children for two nights in a row. No shower, no clothes change. Nada for 30 hours. To make matters worse, we had horrible tour guides. They were only bus leaders, we were on our own during the day, thank god, but one was bossy and condescending  and the other was new. The bossy one was mean to the bus driver and snotty to the new girl and bossy to everyone else. After our day in Berlin, we all board the bus and the only people missing are the two guides. The bus driver decides to leave them. They call and he goes back for them and rather than apologize, they say they had a "medical" emergency. No further explanation or visible injuries (they ran to the bus). The trip home was extremely uncomfortable as the bus driver was pissed off. 

All that aside, Berlin was amazing. We followed our Rick Steves guide book and saw all the major sights. The weather was perfect. We don't usually do museums or sight seeing trips, we like to wander, loosly follow Rick's guide, enjoy the sights, eat the food, stop for drinks. We sat in the sun for lunch and had aprol spritz and curry wurst. We walked through an African festival in the old east Berlin and stopped for Savanna cider. We wandered down the river and watched the boats go by. After checkpoint Charlie, we stopped at the outdoor beach and had a Mexican beer. One tradition we have when we travel is to try to find the best wine bar in town. We managed to find a good one off of

Gendarmenmarkt. It was a fabulous trip and I can't wait to go back to Berlin one day. Just not on a bus!