Saturday 6th September: Magnificent sunny day: 5°C to 25°C:
Cabane du Mont Fort to Le Chable: 18.2k: 8.00am to 12.30 and 2.30pm to 3pm: Total of 5hrs
Sunrise over Mont Blanc
Mont Blanc in full sunlight
Where ever we look it's stunning
Walking your dogs in Switzerland
Old water trench built in 1450
Coffee by water spout with view
1800 metres downhill - Le Chable
25°C and lunch in the shade
Montagnier - village in Valley
Our BnB - our washing in front
Verbier high up on mountain side
Our Chambre d'Hote - Acacias
Cup of tea on the patio
Another stunning day. The rain has cleared overnight and we awake to a beautiful sunny day with a magnificent view of Mont Blanc. Enough adjectives! You get the picture. It's a cold 5°C early and we need to descend almost 1800 metres from our Cabane Mont Fort to Le Chable in the Bagnes Valley. It's a pretty walk through pine forests with intermittent views of the valley and mountains across the other side. An early day spent shopping and washing and booking ahead.
A room for two in a Cabane is a luzury so we're both rested and packed ready to leave early. Breakfast is only toasted meusli and bread and jam, but the tea is super hot and served by the young warden with a smile so it was all good. The Americans are packed ready to go. The young Swiss couple are still in bed. The view from the dining room of Mont Blanc is picture post card stuff. The rain has cleared and it's all blue skies. 178 Swiss Francs for demi pension - dinner, bed, and breakfast. That's about $200AUD then all we need is to buy lunch and our cot per day has been about $250AUD = $125AUD for each of us. That's pretty good considering tour companies for these trips charge $400AUD. It's a tad more than a few years ago because we're doing more walking in Switzerland thich is more expensive but nothing really in the scheme of things. Anyway back to hiking.
It's 5°C as we leave in the shade - it's sunny but the sun has yet to clear the mountain tops. Down past the ski lift, we're following the signs to Clambin - one of many villages scattered throughout the mountainsides. At first we follow a contour around the mountain side where the walking track is next to a water trench built in 1450 to carry glacial water to different villages. A wheeled sled with about 10 harnessed dogs goes whizzing by.
Walking along tracks, roads, footpaths, cow paths and bike trails, the track takes a turn downhill into the pine forests . It's cold, shady but beautiful with the sun on the opposite side of the valley. An hour later and the sun is on us and the instant warmth shoots the temperature from 5°C to 12°C. After 2hrs we reach the village of Clambin - consisting of about 10 chalets on a grassy ledge. Time for coffee by the water trough. And then it's all down and down. We're aiming for a little village just next to Le Chable called Prarreyer where Ian has booked an BnB.
At 12.30pm we're at the bottom of the valley at Montanger, another small village at a height of 800 metres, the lowest we have been to in 3 weeks. Montagner is between Le Chable and our BnB in Prarreyer. There's probably no shops where we're going, so we detour to the right to Le Chable, only to find the local Migros partner is closed until 2pm. It's 25°C and warm, almost hot in the sun, so we find a shady tree with a view of the stairs leading to the supermarket, and have lunch of leftovers. One and a half hours later, we've eaten all the food we carried - stale bread, dried meat and cheese - and we've planned out the next 3 days. We're back in familiar territory now, and decide to take a slight detour around Le Grandes Glacier. This means in two days time we'll need to stay in Argentiere - a 23k walk - or at the Col de la Balme - a 15k walk, but we'll be at the Refuge with the witch of the Balme. We decide on the longer walk to Argentiere.
By 2pm, we hit the Migros supermarket and stock up with enough food for a picnic tonight, and lunch for the next two days. It seems to weigh 4kg (including a bottle of red) as we distribute the goodies between our backpacks - I take the large volume things, the lettuce and bread, Ian takes the small heavy stuff - the meat and cheese. It's almost hot as we head off up the valley for a 2.7k, half hour walk to our BnB.
Prarreyer is a small village in the Bagnes Valley. 1.5k from Le Chable, with a sawmill, and our BnB called Les Acacias is about 400 metres up from the main road. It's easy enough to find, but there's no one home at 3pm, so we walk around the back to find a hand written sign on the unlocked glass door for us. It's a twin bed room with a patio and lovely view over the valley. Showering and washing are a priority as the sun is only an hour away from setting over the mountains.
All done when the owners arrive and insist on making us a cup of tea with home made biscuits. Then it's time to book the next 3 days. Champex, Argentiere and Chamonix and that will be the finale of our Zermatt to Chamonix walk which has just gotten better and better.
Then it's ime to relax, and catch up with emails - it's the first WiFi we've had in 3 days. At 7pm, we roll out our picnic, together with the bottle of red we carried with us and the beer bought from the owner. The US open is on TV - our first TV in a week. Today is as good as a day off.