Nicole and I celebrated getting hitched by flying to Switzerland and hiking around from town to cabin to town. Being a bit short on vacation time, we shortened the traditional walker's Haute Route from Chamonix to Zermatt by cutting out days along the way and starting on day 3.
We flew into Geneva and took the train to Martigny. This was a trip of firsts for us... first time to Europe (together), first international flight (for Erik) and first time we had the pleasure of sticking a 100CHF bill into a vending machine and crossing our fingers it wouldn't be eaten. It didn't, though, and we purchased our train ticket and ran to our train just in time.
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| window in Martigny. We'd hike to the fenetre the next day, which was considerably higher. |
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| Rain leader in Martigny. Does anyone weld rain leaders in the states? |
We took our first day lazily adjusting to the time zone and accidentally ordering octopus on our salad, oops! Many lessons were learned this day, including the fact that the suffix "croix" evidently means "slightly uphill and you should walk - only lazy Americans would take the bus". We took the bus from Martigny to Martigny-Croix. We thought it was the deal of the century... everything had been fairly expensive so far, so the 2chf bus ride seemed very cheap, until we got to our stop approximately three stops and five minutes later.
Accommodations in Martigny-Croix was a great little B&B tucked into apartment buildings. We strolled along the vineyards near the town's edge and I got some ice for Nicole's ankle, which had gotten a minor tweak from taking a big step out the barn during the wedding (it was not our first step together, so we can still say we started off on the right foot). Her ankle would be fine for hiking, thankfully, but it wouldn't be the last body part we iced on the trip, unfortunately.
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| Breakfast was delicious. |
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| Day one : Col de la Forclaz > Champex via Fenetre d'Arpette |
We grabbed a bus the next day from Martigny-Croix up to La col do Forclaz, where we joined the Haute Route. The bus timetable was still a bit perplexing for our high school french, but thankfully the bus showed up just as we were considering starting to stick our thumbs out. We were concerned, though, that the bus might drop us off at a retirement home, as most of the day hikers on the bus appeared to be over 60. At the next stop other day hikers who evidently knew the entire bus got on to raucous applause and high fives. They greeted us in the same manner, though, so maybe they didn't know anyone. Greetings friendly german pensioners! After an appropriate amount of time had passed, our bus pulled up to the col and we were off to our first task : find the trailhead. After several minutes of reading yellow signs searching for anything about Champex, we realized the trail was around the corner... evidently all the day hikers were going to do some other hike. We started the Haute Route... alone. It was odd to leave the crowds as we started a very popular trek... I figured we'd be in crowds the whole time.
From the col we slowly walked uphill along a bisse (man-made irrigation water way). The trail was gentle, which was good as we were only slowly adjusting to the weight in our packs. It wasn't that they were heavy, but we knew we had 12 days of hiking ahead of us... my crummy lightweight boots felt heavy at that thought. About an hour in we came to our first small cabin - more of a drink stand really. We purchased some overpriced apple juice and a homemade fruit bar and then started the climb up to the fenetre.
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| First views of glacier du Trient |
The col we were climbing to was called Fenetre d'Arpette (window into the Arpette - the valley we would drop into). Magnificent views of the Glacier du Trient on our right were rivaled by craggy peaks behind and the gorgeous grassy slopes up to our left. Infinite moderate ski terrain exists above Trient, it should be noted.
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| Lots of exposed ice here - fast retreating glacier... |
As we closed in on the fenetre, the track steepened and became more rocky. We took our time pushing our heavy packs and tired jet lagged bodies uphill. At the col we took a break and befriended some english blokes (I'm not sure if bloke is offensive, but its fun to say, isn't it?) One of them had worked in Zermatt for several years and recommended several restaurants to try out.
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| Erik tagging the sub-peak of upper Fenetre d'Arpette. Clerestory d'Arpette? Relite d'Arpette? Need to stop working with so many architects... |
Trekking poles were extended and we dove down the other side of the fenetre into the Val d'Arpette, which means Arpette valley. We saw lots of Arpettes along the way.
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| Flowers on the walk down the Val d'Arpette |
The trail was generally in great shape and easy to follow, until we lost it and found ourselves following what appeared to be about 2-3 sets of bootprints through knee high grass. This can't be the trail that the hordes use when they do the Haute Route, can it? It wasn't, but it didn't matter much as the valley narrows at the bottom, there was no Cascade schwacking necessary, and we could see a large clearing with a cabane that the trail passed by a mile or so downhill. The rest of the downhill trudge was uneventful, but we did have our first cattle sighting. They didn't seem to notice hikers walking by, which was good as they outweighed us considerably (though I did eat lots of Nutella for breakfast that morning).
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| first cow sighting |
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