Saturday 13th August: Weather: 11°C to 30°C: Clear sunny hot days with blue skies all day
Chamonix: 20k from Les Contamines to Les Houches: 9.30am to 4pm with 2 x 20 min breaks
Ascent/Descent: Ascent 800m, Descent 900m, Total up and down 1,700m
Accommodation: Chamonix Chalet
Wooded path from Les Contamines
Les Hoches home of Alexis Bouvard
Mont Blanc from Col de Voza
Morning Coffee in a field overlooking Les Contamines Valley
Time to small the roses
More views Mon Blanc
Lunch 1hr before Col de Voza
Mont Blanc and Bionassey Glacier
Highlight today was another all day view of Mont Blanc on a picture perfect day. Today we are doing a third leg of the Tour de Mont Blanc from Les Contamines to Les Houches via the Col de Voza. First we took a train to St Gervais, then a bus to Les Contamines before hiking up to the Col de Voza and down to Les Houches where we get the train back to Chamonix. This route has spectacular views of Mont Blanc and the Bionassey Glacier from the southern side. The problem today was which photos of Mont Blanc to choose for my blog!
Almost back to normal with a 5am start. Today we planned to get the train from Chamonix to St Gervais, then bus to Les Contamines then walk back to Les Houches via the Col de Voza. After an early breakfast, we catch the 7.15 train from Chamonix down the Valley through Les Houches to St Gervais where we catch the Line T84 busto Les Contamines. While waiting for teh bus, we meet a girl from Brazil who has been in Europe for the past 3 months training for every possible ultra trail she could find. Today she was running from Les Contamines back to Chamonix via Col de Trus, Col de Tricot and Le Brevant - a distance of almost 40k which she will do in about 7 hrs. She’s training for the Ultra Trail de Mont Blanc (UTMB) and sh’es one of hundreds of trail runners we have seen in the past 3 days.
After a hairy ride up a mountain pass from St Gervais, we arrive at Les Contamines at 9.30am and within 5 mins, we’ve bought a French Baguette from the busy bakery across the road and started our walk along the fast flowing Le Bon Nant in the shade of overhanging trees. It’s a cool 11 ° as we walk past the farm where Alexis Bouvard once lived in 1843. We’ve walked past this place 3 times in past years and this was the first time we’ve stopped to read that he was an astronomer who discovered Neptune. After an hour we emerge from the trees into the warm sunlight, cross the road and beging a gradual climb towards the Col de Voza.
At 11 am, after walking for an hour and a half, it’s time for a belated coffee sitting in a freshly mowed field under a shady tree overlooking the Les Contamiones Valley. Onward and upward past pretty French Villages adorned with flower beds there’s time to smell the roses. At every turn we can see the southern side of Mont Blanc and the Bionassey Gracier which has retreated more than 200 metres since we first visited in 2005. As have all the glaciers in the Mont Blanc region! The walk winds its way around a path used by the old 1898 train and is well graded and shady. At Le Croset, there’s a car park full of cars, with hikers leaving in all directions. But more importantly there’s a table and chairs reserved just for our lunch. Today it’s more than fig roll biscuits. Lunch is the fresh baguette I bought this morning with tomato and a slab of Beaufort Cheese - a special Alpine cheese from the Beaufort area not far from here.
Lunch legs. A term we use when there’s a mountain climb soon after eating lunch when all the blood has drained out of the legs to the stomach. Despite vowing to never stop for lunch before the top of a mountain, today by 1.30 we were famished and with only 40 minutes to climb to Col de Voza, we opt to have lunch. Needless to say the 40 minute climb was like wading through waist deep water - very slow. We arrive at the Col de Voza with more spectacular views across to Mont Blanc and the Bionassey Glacier. There’s a cog wheeled train that departs from the Col taking tourists right up to the face of the glacier.
The path down follows the road used as a ski path in winter and though it’s down hill, the two hours seems like a long time slipping and sliding down a very gravelly road until we reach the bottom at Les Houches. TheWe know the train leaves every half hour, but that doesn’t help us know exactly whan it leaves. So we hurry along to teh tourist office who gives us directions back to the Gare Les Houches, about 2k out of town and across valley. Moving quickly we follow another couple who seem to know where they are going and look like they’re headed for the train so we tag along behind them and finally reach the SNCF to find the train waiting there ready to leave. Good timing!
A twenty minute train ride gets us back to Chamonix at 4.40pm and we immediately return to our apartment to shower before heading back to the town centre. There’s a few things we need to buy. Butter for one. And Ian’s paper thin hiking shorts have two large holes in the bum. I thought I could sew them together but a closer look revealed there was no solid material left to sew up the holes. So we needed to buy a new pair.
The town is throbbing with tourists searching for a dinner table. Looking for new pair of shorts for Ian, first shop is Colombia, Snells, Intersport, North Face then finally Decathlon where he found exactly what he wanted. Crappy material but black, knee length legs a belt for his camera. Next stop back to Snells to see if they can fix my anti-shock Leki walking poles which both have broken shock absorbers. No luck so I’ll need to tape them up to stop the pole segments moving. And last stop the Casino supermarket for butter and a tomato. It’s 7pm when we return back to our apartment to our usual dinner - French Baguette, ham, cheese, mace, onion and mayonnaise, with a Mateus Rose - can you belueve it cost 4 euro = $6 as there is no wine excise in France.
Not sure where we’re going tomorrow. We need to check out the map in the morning. A cup of tea and bed