Monday 27th August: Weather 8°C to 12°C at Col di Fenetre: sunny all day
Rhemes Notre Dame to Rifugio Bezzi DAY 8: 17k: 9hrs 30 mins: 8.30am to 6.00pm: Ascent 1800m Descent 800m
Accommodation: Rifugio Bezzi at Altitude of 2391m
Cold start 8°C leaving Arthemisia
Another stunning blue sky day
Heading up to the Fenetre
Looking back at Rhemes Notre Dame
Col Fenetre way up ahead
Very steep to Col Fenetre
3hrs constant climbing
This climb is one of the steepest
Zlmost at the top
Col Fenetre 2840 metres
And the view is stunning
Morning tea with a view
Chalet L’Epee after 500m descent
On the Glacial High Route
Lunch with a view
Glaciers in the high alps
Valley road deep in valley below
Late afternoon tea at 5pm
Packing at Hotel Grivola
Rifugio Bezzi at last
Another stunning day with an 1100 metre steep climb to the Col Fenetre with amazing views then descending 500 metres and leaving the Alt Via 2 for the High Glacial Route with more stunning views of glaciers in all directions. A difficult day, not because of the distance or height gained and losy, but because the last 9k from Rifugio L’Epee to Bezzi involved boulder hopping for most of the track.
Awake at 6.30am to another blue sky day. The internet at Arthemisia is not good enough to call home or publish any blog, just good enough to send off a few emails. Breakfast is at 7.30am and is a lovely spread of hot croissants, ham and cheese and yoghurt with fresh fruit. There’s 10 other people at breakfast, 4 of them are mountain bikers. They are headed up to Col Entrelor today but we have no idea how they are going to get their bikes up the steep ladders. They warn us of the steep climb to Col Fenetre which they did yesterday - how on earth they did we’ll never know!
We leave at 8.30am and walk the 1k back up the road to start our hike near the village of Bruil, the main village in the collection of villages known as Rhemes Notre Dame. It’s 8.45am and the climb starts immediately. It’s steep and gets steeper. The track is narrow and a mixture of slippery rocks, high steps, and just plain dirt that’s so dry it puffs a cloud of dust into our socks with each step. It’s a magnificent day and the temperature soon warms from a cold 8°C to 12°C so we stop to strip off our warm gear as we’re already sweating with the steep climb which is relentless.
Stopping every 15 minutes for a 30 second breather we can finally see the Col Fenetre ahead. It’s like a U shaped window cut into the top of the alps. We can see people half way up and realise it’s still steep when these hikers seem to be making very slow progress around the zig zags, taking forever to get to the top. After 2 hours of climbing, we hit the steepest part of the track. It’s so steep in places that there's a rope cable fixed to the rock wall to help yank our selves up. It’s still another hour of exhausting climbing, some of the steepest we have encountered anywhere in the alps, before we finally reach the Col Fenetre at 2940 metres. The previous two days climbs to Col Lauson and Col Entrelor were much higher but today’s climb was so much steeper. We had to work hard to climb the 1100 metres in 3 hours. That’s about 370 metres ascent per hour and it felt like it too.
The views at the top are amazing - I’ve probably used that word too many times already - but nothing can truly describe what it's like to be on top of teh alps on a picture perfect day. Time for a cup of tea and cake before beginning our descent down the other side which is no where near as steep. It takes an hour of descending 500 metres to reach Rifugio Chalet L’Epee, where there’s dozens of hikers coming and going.
The Alt Via 2 continues up the Valgrisenche Valley to Planaval, but today we leave this route and join the High Glacial Route, turning left soon after Rifugio Chalet L’Epee. It’s supposed to be a balcony walk at a level of about 2500 metres all the way to the upper end of the Valgrisenche Valley where the glaciers hang off the mountain tops. But we soon discover that it’s more of a roller coaster ride up and down and round, made more difficult by having to boulder hop much of the way. The ascents and descents are not much compared to our climb this morning but by the time we’ve been up and down 100 metres a dozen times, we think we’ve added another 1000 metres ascent and descent to our day.
At 3pm, when we’re high near the Glaciers, we have lunch of bread butter ham tomatoes and cheese - not too much as we still have a few hours of hiking up and down. We’re feeling a little weary after a long day, but the glaciale views make it all worth while. The boulder hopping really slows us down and by 5pm, we’re ready for another cup of tea. Then finally after a long but wonderful day, we can see Rifugio Bezzi 300 metres below us in the valley and at 6pm, we’re there.
Rifugio Bezzi is described as being more like a hotel than a refuge with small rooms and hot showers. There’s already about 80 pairs of boots at the entrance, so we guess the place is almost full. We did get a small room to ourselves but when we went to have a shower, the water is freezing cold. 80 people before us had used up all the hot water. A splash and a dash is all we can do tonight.
Dinner is at 7pm and we’re sitting with a group of French hikers who are crossing into the the Vanoise tomorrow. This part of the Gran Paradiso is very close the the French border. Dinner is 4 courses of soup, pasta, meat and broccoli, a slice of cheese, and creme caramel. By 9pm we’re back in our room sorting photos. Then lights out at 10pm.