DAY 30: Sunday July 1st: Les Contamines to Les Houches: 19.5k 8hrs 30min: Fine, misty then rain, 19°C to 15°C
Leaving Gai Soleil Les Contamines New shorts, white legs, sunscreen
Misty sky , eerie forests
But magical glimpses of Alps
Col de Tricot 2120 metres - zig zags
After morning tea - 600m climb up
There's 60 people on way down
And the mist rolls in
An ibex on the way down too
Col de Tricot 2120 metres
At the Col de Tricot - 12.30pm
5 mins later the rain sets in
Suspension bridge over Bionnassay Glacier - if only i could see it
Not much to photograph - just cows
Trust me, it's nice down there
Next - Cold de Voza 1650 metres
Repairs to camera case after a wine
- a few pricked fingers.
The France Meteo weather forecast got it right - rain in the afternoon. But we managed to do the Col de Tricot (2120 metres) before the rain set in - lucky because from the next col - the Col de Voza at 1650 metres, we'd seen the rest of the track twice before. A memorable day when you are in the mountains with mist limiting visibility to 20 metres.
When we awake, there's patches of blue sky. We (make that I) had wanted to do the variant of the Tour de Mont Blanc to the Col de Tricot, a difficult though only 600 metre near vertical climb that we hadn't done on either of our two trips to Mont Blanc.
First a few skype calls, time to publish the diary to day 29, then I trot off to the boulangerie before breakfast to buy some fresh bread for the day - we are still carrying 1kg of Beaufort cheese and 2 Beaufort sausages and with the tomatoes we bought yesterday, that should be lunch.
Breakfast at 8am is a again a guest house spread of yoghurt, cheeses, fresh bread and croissants with meusli and really hot tea. After brekky, we hand over our bag of leave-behinds to Mme Mamoud, who takes it securely behind closed doors - the bag has grown to about 5kg with the odd shirt and mobile phones and cords added in. Except for the cheese and sausages, both our back packs are significantly lighter. It's amazingly warm outside at 19°C so I'm in my new shorts. There's no rain in sight - just high mist.
The climb to the Col de Tricot starts immediately - up through the back of the village and then through pine forests. I's so warm, we strip off our long shirts and walk in shorts and tee shirts. We have some eerie glimpses of the alps and forests through the mist which comes in sweeping gusts. After 2 hrs, we reach the high point in the forests but then need to descend a few hundred metres into a green valley below. The rocks are slippery from the mist. Once down in the valley we are faced with the climb to the col - time for a cup of coffee as we watch a stream of people begin to descend from the top.
It's an almost vertical 600 metre climb, zig zagging up a shallow gully to the very distinct col at the top and we sit and watch as people descend like ants on a wall. After some bread and tomatoes with coffee for morning tea, it's time to start our climb. We pass the pretty Refuge Miage in the valley then hit the zig zags. It's just one step after the other - slower than granny up the stairs. We have to stop and make way for the large groups of people descending - we figure more than 60 people in one hour have come down (they are doing the traditional anti clockwise route and have approached the col from the other side). And English couple warns us of the mist on the other side of the col - so far we have seen only swirling gusts sweeping up our side.
In places, it's very steep and gravelly - helter skelter the guide book describes it - but it's worse for us because we are going against the flow - try running up a crowded down escalator. Amongst all these people, there's a lone ibex wandering down the path like it owns it. Eventually we reach the top and we have it almost to ourselves - 5 other people. We find a sheltered spot out of the wind which has increased and it's all of a sudden getting colder. Ian boils the billy for a quick cup of tea and then we head off down the mountain. We've only been walking 5 minutes before we have to stop and put rain gear on - jackets and ponchos and my new gloves as my hands are cold. It's not freezing, my thermometer says 15°C, but cold when it's wet and windy. I'm not sure I like my new gloves - they're supposed to be waterproof but they're not very warm. And they're hard to get on and off - try putting on rubber gloves when your hands are wet and sticky. But I've left my old ones back in Les Contamines, so I have to make do.
Th rain has really set in now. Misty drizzle as we descend. The rocks are slippery. It looks like raining all afternoon. When we arrive at a semi dry spot under a large pine tree, we stop for lunch - a quickie - bread, cheese, tomato and dried ham - that means only 900gms of cheese to carry. It starts to rain heavily as we arrive at the suspension bridge across the Bionnassay glacier, which has retreated 2k back in just 20 years. We hear the water rushing beneath, we get wetter from the spray, we can't see to the other side and there's no glacier in sight. Oh well, I've seen it a few times from the other track but we'll have to rely on the internet to see what we might have seen. That's life in the Alps.
Further down, all we see is cattle who appear from nowhere out of the mist. The sharp descent becomes flatter as the track winds around a contour. After a few kilometres of level walking, the track becomes a gravel road and descends very sharply down to the next col - Col de Voza - at 1650 metres. We've now joined the normal route of the Tour de Mont Blanc and from here down we have trekked this same road, though in reverse. At the Col de Voza, there's 2 bar/restaurants and it's the start of the Mont Blanc tramway taking tourists to a view point to Mont Blanc. The line is 12.4 km long and has a rail gauge of 1,000 mm. There's a height difference of 1,792 m from St Gervais where the line begins to Nid d'Aigle near the Bionnassay Glacier. The line has an average gradient of 15% and a maximum gradient of 24%. Just a bit of interesting trivia.
Despite teh weather, there's a lot of day trippers around. We sit on the little green seats we've used before to have a cup of tea. There's still a 600 metre descent. The hot tea is welcome. A 10 minute break and we're off again. Down. There's been a lot of ups and downs today - the ups are doable, the downs aren't easy - hard on the knees and mor of a danger of slipping. The rain continues drizzling, but at least there's no wind and its not too cold. Down. Down. Down. 2 hrs later we step onto flat ground at the start of the village of Les Houches and head off to the lower end of the town to the Hotel Beausite. We stayed here in 2009 with Graham and Jenny, but we can't duplicate our great dinner that we had outside in the garden - it's still raining.
We take off our shoes and ponchos, check in and strip off for a nice hot shower. Time to do a few repairs and cut a bit of hook velcro from a spare strap and re attach it to Ian's camera bag. The operation works. Time for dinner.
No demi pension tonight, just a la carte so we choose one course, lamb, potato, carrots and beans with a nice red. We ask for the dessert menu - Ian's looking for a creme brulee - there's none - so we give dessert a miss.
Now if you'd really like to hear Ian's version of today's events, you'll have to ask Graham - man talk, I believe.