Friday 12th September: Cold Sunny morning 5°C, warm overcast day 18°C, Cool sunny afternoon 10°C
Sixt-Fer-a-Cheval to Chardonniere: 26.0k 9am to 5pm: 8hrs
Crossing over Pont des Nants
Ladders into the Gorges Tines
More ladders
And more ladders
And there's runners doing this
Re-packing after Carrefours
Lunch watching the hang gliders
Samoens is a pretty ski village
Heading up to the Col de Golese
1829 church at Les Allamendes
Up through the larch forests
Looking down on Samoens
Col de Golese at 1660m
Lunch at 4pm once over the Col
Refuge Chardonniere
Refuge Chardonniere at 1360metres
Refuge is a working dairy farm
Warming icy hands by the fire
A long day because we went 5k out of our way to go shopping at Carrefours. But really another very different day and we've definitely left the Alps behind. Ladders! Another ladders day going down into the Gorges Tines, a long climb up 1000 metres to the Col de Golese through larch forests and a muddy climb down to our farmhouse refuge at La Chardonniere.
We're awake early at 6am but there's no internet. The wiFi provided by Gites de Fance closes down between midnight and 8am - That's France. So we have a billy boiled cup of tea and pack, ready to have a quick breakfast and go. Breakfast is really nice - hot tea and fresh bread - cold tea and stale bread is the pits. We're back in our room at 8am ready to gi when we find the WiFi is back on and we need to book a place to stay in Chevenoz, 3 days away but we have no internet for the next 3 days. Our warden, Christophe phones ahead to a B and B in Chevenoz but it is full and there's not much else in the town, so we do a quick look around on booking.com for a place and find a Hotel Logis (a family run chain of hotels) in Bernex, so we need to do a slight detour to get there. We're already late, so may as well Facetime home and check emails.
At 9am we leave. It's cold, 5°C, as we head down to the Pont de Nantes across the rushing stream and follow the signs to the Gorges des Tines. It goes uphill into the forests, up and up and we begin to think we've missed the Gorges, and then we spy the ladders. They're not so bad. There's one set that takes us deep down into the Gorges des Tines. Walking through is a bit of a scramble over boulders, with high sheer cliffs above. But there's no rushing stream through here, it's down below. Another few hundred metres and there's another set of ladders going down that takes us out of the Gorge and onto a forested path that descends down to a flat alluvial plain with signs that indicate it's 5.2k to Samoens walking along a path near the Giffre Torrent. We've already checked out that there's a Carrefours Supermarket about 2k the other side of Samoens that we can reach by following the River and with Ian's GPS, the path takes us directly to the back of carrefours.
We've decided it was worth the extra few k as there didn't seem to be any supermarkets in the town of Samoens and we especially wanted 3 things. Plastic Ziploc bags that you can only get at Carrefours, honey with a secure lid, and macadamia nuts to have with a beer each afternoon. The staff aren't very helpful, as normally we just park our backpacks at the front and the checkout girl keeps an eye on them. But this time, we're directed to a locker room, and it's not obvious nor desirable to leave our bags and passports in a public room. So best to take them in with us. Carrefours a big disappointment after an extra 5k round trip to get to there. Wrong sized ziploc bags, no honey with pop up lid, and no macadamia nuts. But we do get some fresh bread, bullock hearts tomatoes, dried ham and cheeses, so not all was lost.
Our packs are heavy as we leave to get back on the GR5 track. But time for a coffee first in the flower-lined streets, with the hang gliders floating down in the park next door. Time to taste the fresh bread and brie cheese. Nothing else. Theres' a 1000 metre climb up to the Col de Golese ahead. Through the village of Samoens which is packed with day walkers and touirists, we start our climb up towards Les Allamendes, an old German village half way up to the col. The path takes us criss-crossing over the road, but there's no traffic, so it's best to stay on the road where the gradient is easier.
At 2pm we reach Les Allamendes and see the church build in 1829. The village has been deserted since World War 1, with unknown consequences for the German inhabitants. It's a really pretty walk up through larch forests. Every few kilometres, there's car parks full of cars and we have already come across dozens of day walkers. Tjere's definitely more day walkers here than in parts of the Alps.
The bitumen road turns into a wide gravel track and its gets colder as we climb. I daren't stop for anything to eat as we've still a few hours to climb and my legs will feel like they've got lead weights tied to them if I climb after eating - lunch legs as Donna says. So we keep on climbing. Out of the forests and up into the meadows, there's still many day walkers descending towards us. It's getting colder, but we can see the top now so we walk faster. At last we reach the Col de Golese (1660 metres) at 3.40pm. It's been a long climb up, but in reality we're still at the same height as Zermatt where we started 3 weeks ago though we've started our climb from a lower base. We see the Refuge de Golese 50 metres across from teh Col, clearly closed. It was our original destination, but now we need to walk another 50 minutes to Refuge La Chardonniere.
It's really cold at the col - 10°C, and we're still in T-shirts sweating from the climb up, and starving from having only a small cheese sandwich for morning tea and no lunch. Ten minutes over the Col and we're heading down. There's a little nook behind a rock, out of the wind, where we stop to put on a long sleeved shirt and Aldi wind breaker and sit down to a bread, butter, sausage, tomato and cheese sandwich.
Thirty minutes later and we'er off again, through larch forests and watching for signs to La Chardonniere. The track is wet, muddy, slippery and v]clearly a cow track with mud and plops intermingled. Trying to tip toe through is useless. Take the plunge and muddy up! The Refuge La Chardonniere is in sight down on a ledge in the valley, but we're not 100% sure that it is our refuge so we keep on walking along the muddy track looking for a sign. Another 20 minutes and the sign points us down a steep forest track towards the farm house that is a combination of farmhouse and refuge. The farmer greets us and unlocks the door where we're hit by the warmth of a wood fire, and shows us to a 20 person dormitory. Yippee. But it's better than we expected. There's only one other person, Jean, a French guy from near Luxembourg . The shower is hot and the wood fire is heating the whole building so we think it will be OK.
Dinner is about 7.30 and there's just the 3 of us. It was THE best refuge meal we have had the whole trip. Entre is tuna, ripe tomatoes and mayonnaise, main course is a whole breast of chicken, fried potato patties, a specialty of the region, and green beans. Next course is a selection of regional cheeses followed by creme caramel. Josephine, our host, the farmers wife has produced an exceptional refuge meal. There's also 8 other guests, but they are just staying for this delicious dinner.
Three carafes of rose later, we've had a nice old chat to Jean. He's walking the GR5 from Lake Geneva to Les Houches, in the traditional way which is the opposite direction to us, but giving up tomorrow - he's had two nights in thunderstorms in a tent, and he has serious blisters. He'll do it another time.
At 9pm, we're in bed.