DAY 23: Sunday June 24th - Refuge de la Leisse to Tignes le Lac: 15k, 5hrs: Blue skies, 0°C to 21°
Edelweiss right outside our door
Cold start from Refuge de la Leisse
Frozen lakes - to Col de la Leisse
Frozen Lake - unbelievable beauty
Frozen wilderness near Col
You can't imagine the beauty
More icy wonderland
And more
Can't stop including all our photos
On way to top of Col de La Leisse
Gondoliers in sky - dots are skiers
Vanoise Park - Such beauty
It's hard traversing the snow
Cold de la Leisse ((2758m)
And we're there at the Col
Looking back at the Col
Tignes le Lac is a Ghost town in summer - and notice no cap
Tignes le Lac
Are we allowed to have another magical day???? I can't describe the beauty of being in the Vanoise Park amidst this icy wonderland and almost alone except for a few through walkers. Today we cross the very high Col de La Leisse (2758metres) - not a difficult climb starting from a height of 2500metres at the Refuge de La Leisse, but there's about 3 to 4 kilometres of snow drifts to cross on the way up and on the way down - at least it's not too steep. My day was spoiled when we arrived at Val Claret (a ski resort just before Tignes Le Lac) and realised my cap is missing - my favourite Body 4u cap - and Bonnie's favourite cap - actually it's hers - I just swiped it. Nothing upsets me on this trip - falling waist deep snow, getting lost, 10hrs of walking in a day, no showers, no loos, but losing my cap was very upsetting - especially since it was Bonnie's favourite cap too!!! More to the cap story later.
We started the morning when the first person was up at 6am. Packed and ready to go, we have a very early breakfast of cake and hot tea - yuk! Time to leave. But not before I take a photo of the Edelweiss growing right outside our dormitory - can't say I would have recognised it unless someone pointed it out. We leave the refuge at 7.30am and 10minutes later we stop for a rock stop - neither of us could bare to go to that loo first thing in the morning. We walk around the edge of an icy blue lake then through a frozen wilderness and to the start of hundreds of metres of snow drifts. For the next 2 hours, it's just an icy wonderland. We stop to take a myriad of photos. It's just another one of those blue sky picture perfect magical days - is that enough adjectives? We reach the Col de La Leisse (2759metres) in 2 hours. It was slippery but not difficult - just 50 metres lower than the Col de Chaviere from 2 days before which was a much more difficult and a steeper climb.
We move through the snow drifts following yesterday's footsteps of other walkers - and high up above us we see ski gondoliers on the wires with skiers sliding down the hill 500 metres above us. They have come up by a telegraphic from Val Claret to ski the glacier, La Grand Motte, which they can do all year round. In another 30minutes we descend below the snow line and walk down a gradual descent to Val Claret - a high rise ski resort that is just like a ghost town in summer. We get to the tourist office just before it closes, to find a hotel we can relax in for the afternoon, and do our washing and catch up on the news through WiFi. The girl suggested the hotel d'Aigle about 1k around the lake at Tignes le Lac. I soon realise I am missing my favourite cap and after one hour of searching retracing our steps with no luck, we walk around the lake and sit and have lunch on a bench seat with all the other picnickers - I don't know where they bought their food from because there were no shops open in Val Claret.
Up the the Hotel d'Aigle and we are soon in our room having a shower and doing our washing. It's just a beautiful day - good for drying clothes - and it's not long before we have emptied our packs, washed everything in the basin with shampoo, and strung it on a line Ian has tied across our balcony. We can see that our balcony will be in the sun until at least 9pm so it should dry. I'm still thinking about that cap. So….
At 4pm, we re-don our walking gear minus pack and retrace our steps - I'm not leaving this place until I check out every possibility. We go to the tourist office where we booked the hotel, the boulangerie where we bought the bread, then my last big rock stop - no hat. That's about 3k and it takes an hour. We walk back down, check all the possibilities, knock on the door of the boulangerie (which is closed but we can see someone inside) - no she hasn't seen the cap. Walk on down the road, head down, looking sideways - and there it is - sitting on a ledge on the side of the road. Must have dropped it juggling the baguettes and quiche and someone's picked it up and put it on the step. I'm overjoyed. This makes my day. Almost as good as the fairytale scenery we've walked through today.
We walk back around the lake, check out the Spar grocery store to see what time it opens in the morning - 7am - then back to the hotel to do FaceTime with Donna who has cut her ankle in the bike chain - nasty. Then time to type diary and sip a really nice red and Ian has his usual beer.
Dinner is at 8pm - there seems to be an Italian connection. Everyone is speaking Italian, including the manager, and we are served pasta for dinner - very nice if you only eat 1/4 of the mound. Then a thin slice of pork and 2 slices of carrots - haven't seen greens for days, followed by a cream and berry compote. Wine is ordinary, compared to earlier - might have been the exhilaration of finding the cap that made it taste nice.
We finish dinner and Ian gets the manager to phone ahead to the next refuge - Refuge de Chalet de Rosuel - we have no idea if there'll be a hole in the ground or even a shower, but we'll soon find out. Just a few more days and we're at the Tour de Mont Blanc. It's all been so exciting these last three weeks that it's hard to understand that we're still excited about the Tour de Mont Blanc - a 10 day trip we have done twice before. And of course the Tour de France starts at the same time , so we have to make sure that we finish each day's walk at 3pm to see the last 2hrs of the TDF.
Bed time.
Very happy Jan - cap found