DAY 33: Wednesday July 4th: Col de Forclaz to Champex: 16k 9hrs: No wind, a little cloudy, Magic day, late storms, 8°C to 18°C
8am - Leaving Hotel de Forclaz
Looking back at Col de Balme - yesterday's walk.
Glacier du Trient - getting close
Glacier du Trient - real close now
Blue skies and beautiful alps
Only 1200 m more - straight UP
Just a stone's throw to the glacier
Time for a coffee break 1/2 way up
That gap - Fenetre d'Arpetteat 2665m is where we're heading
Head down, upward and onward
But time to stop and stare
Friends meet - Darren and Andrea - we met at Col de Bonhmoome
Can't help myself - had to include
Top of Fenetre d'Arpette 2665M
C'mon - throw me some cheese
Down again - Ian did ask if I was OK - before he took the photo
Fenetre D'Arpette - the window in the mountains - you can see why
2 hrs later - a long way down from Fenetre d'Arpette in Background
Down to the Forests of Champex
Finally Champex on the Lake
Another magical day - sorry - I've run out of adjectives. We decided to do the more difficult variant of the Tour de Mont Blanc over the Fenetre d'Arpette at 2665 metres - a climb from Forclaz of 1200 metres. The walk was stunning - up beside the Gacier du Trient - then a helter skelter scramble over rocks and boulders on hands and knees - trekking poles don't work when there's nothing to dig the ends into. And we pass another milestone today 600k about 120k left to go which will bring teh total to closer to 720k - ad that doesn't include back-tracking 6-7k to find my lost Body4U cap.
It's nice to be able to wake up and have a shower - even if it is down the hall. Our washing is strung out all over the room - it didn't quite dry last night. Time to hang some on the back pack as we doddle along - it will dry today - It's another beautiful day in the Alps so we're doing the Fenetre d'Arpette - a high Mountain climb of 2665 metres, instead of the Bovine - a beautiful picturesque walk through meadows and cows which we have done twice before. We're downstairs at 6.30am making a few skype calls to home.
Breakfast is at 7am - hot tea, fresh bread and a croissant, butter and jam - it's all good. I don't eat my bread, save it for lunch - we only have one small slice of cheese, a few old tomatoes and that's it - our salamis died remember.
It's a crisp 8°C as we leave the Hotel de Forclaz and walk beside an old irrigation channel built in 1895 carrying water from the Glacier du Trient to the farms in Forclaz. It's flat, and follows the contours for about 3km - we walk quickly to stay warm. The temperature drops to 5°C as we near the Glacier du Trient. Then we leave the level path and start to climb quickly. It's a scramble already, often carrying our poles to clamber up on hands and knees.
The track runs alongside the Glacier - its awesome - a kind of blue ice - like a waterfall frozen in time about to tumble over the rocks but its stationary - a moment in time. You can't help but stop top to look at it frequently because you can't walk and watch at the same time. We catch up to 2 Americans from Boston - they are doing the Chamonix to Zermatt walk with a personal guide, the walk is part of the TMB. Somehow they had gentry eggs for breakfast while we were eating the peasants croissants.
Half way up, we stop for a billy coffee before assaulting the steep second half which is almost 45° and very bouldery. There's a few other walkers - 6 going our way, and then we encounter a group of about 15 coming down from the top - no room for 2 way traffic and courteously they stand aside while we climb on up - mountain trekking etiquette means give way to the uphill climber. Then all of a sudden we come across old friends - well almost - Darren and Andrea are an Australian couple doing the Tour de Mont Blanc Anti clockwise, the opposite direction to us, and we met them down the southern end of the TMB near the Col de Bonhomme and stopped to chat - it was his 40th Birthday present and he didn't know his girlfriend had planned it. We said - see you half way round - and we did - on the way up the the Fenetre d'Arpette - so we stopped and got a French couple to take a photo. Darren and Andrea tell us it's even steeper on the other side going down - that's good news!!!!
Then it's heads down and one step after the other, for another hour. The climb gets steeper and I have to tighten my back pack straps to pull it into my back so it doesn't swing out backwards and throw me off balance. After 1 hrs walking and 3 hrs of near vertical climbing we reach the top. The views from both sides are amazing and we have a near perfect day except for a little bit of cloud hanging around. Time for a well earned cup of tea and a tiny piece of cheese which we split before we head down. There's black birds hankering for a bit of cheese - I chuck them the crusty end of the Beaufort.
Time to start going down. It's steep - really steep. We have to use our poles as proper- stoppers ahead of us before we take another step down. There's steps and boulders to clamber over and slippery gravel that you can't get a grip on. There's also snow drifts on this side and it's hard to get a footing because it's so steep. On one slippery section, my poles and feet give way - I'm down. Ian calls out to ask if I'm OK - yes - and so he takes a photo while I'm stuck.
Down some more and when we stop for a break and look back, it's so very clear from this side why the call it the Fenetre d'Arpette - the Window of Arpette - it's a huge U shaped chunk out of the top of the mountain range that sort of looks like a col but it's really a chunk. It looks awesome the further we descend and realise that we've actually been up there. We pass no on on the way down - there's not many people go this way - apart from the group of 15 people there's only been about 10 people all day.
The climb down is relentless - just when you think it's going to flatten out, it's more boulders to clamber over. Another 2 hrs of descent and we reach a more decent steady gradient leading into the forests. It's 2pm, it's warmed up to 18°C and time for lunch - or what's left of it - squashed tomatoes, one slice of bread to share and and small piece of cheese - all washed down with mountain water. But the pine forest setting is just beautiful.
We roll down a narrow dirt road into Champex at 3.30pm - a familiar but welcome site - we know the approximate position of the Au Plein Air, as we had seen it on our last 2 trips. When we get there. it's not open til 4pm - but we're thirsty and starving. First we check out the shop to make sure it;s open in the morning - yes at 7.30pm. Then we find a bar, have a drink with some nuts and go back to the hotel/gite at 4pm to check in. We have a nice but basic room with the shower down the hall again. It has WiFi and a strong signal from our room on the second floor. We're still starving and thirsty - Ian goes back to teh little shop and buys a half bottle of red, some beer and a packet of chips.
He proudly returns with his haul, then discovers the bottle of red is a cork top - so we donate one fork to the cause and dig out the cork, springing all the tongs on the fork, rendering it unusable. I'm here blogging and checking out the State of Origin scores - Qld Wins 21-20 - Yeh!!
There's no TV downstairs - well there is but she won't turn it on because she thinks people argue over what to watch - there's no question - at this time of the year there's really only the Tour de France and maybe Wimbledon - how dare anyone want to watch anything else! But Ian has managed to find a Eurosport channel on his Samsung tablet to see the finish of the Tour de France live in which Andrew Greipel wins in a sprint to the line after Mark Cavendish crashes out 3k from home.
7pm and it's dinner time - the Au Plein Air is a back packers delight and Lis, the lady who runs it helped with the Cicerone book on The tour de Mont Blanc, so I was keen to come here for a change as we normally stay at the Belvedere Hotel. At dinner there's only a handful of people as it's early in the season. There's 2 guys sitting opposite us - one is French the other is Nepalese and they're married to 2 French sisters. The Nepalese guy lives in Shanghai and has a Tibetan/Indian Restaurant. The 2 of them walked from 8am til 7pm tonight and did a 3 day normal walk in 1 day, from Courmayeur to Champex. Tomorrow they are doing another 3 in 1 day walk from Champex to Chamonix - that's a huge day - so in 2 days they will have done 1/2 the tour de Mont Blanc - we're taking 9 days in total and we thought that was quick.
Dinner is really nice - mixed salad, followed by Chicken, cauliflower and potato wedges then ice cream. I eat the salad, but not much else. After being starved all day, I stuffed myself with chips and peanuts before we even started dinner., with a plastic cup of red wine full of floaty bits of cork, the result of the fork ploughing through the cork stopper.
Back to our bedroom - it's quite spacious with adjoined twin beds and a balcony which we can't use because it stormed just an hour ago and is overcast. Time to blog and email - it's nice having WifI with a signal in the room so we don't have to go down stairs.
There's not much choice in routes tomorrow so t's straight down the valley to La Fouly. The other walking paths only go to mountain cols of huts but don't connect. But after a few long days, it will be nice to saunter down the valley to do a 15k mostly flat walk. The weather forecast isn't good - rain at times. But there's no high mountains to cross so we might just have a cruisy day and watch the end of the Tour de France in our Hotel Edelwiess room (we know they have a TV from being there in 2009).