Day two of the Haute Route.
Our general strategy for tackling the walker's Haute Route in 10 days was to skip out on stages that simply paralleled a road walking down a valley. There are numerous stages that fell into this category. I'm sure they're beautiful hikes for the most part, but we had a short time frame in country, and were there to see the grand views above treeline. Really this trip was just one big beta gathering expedition, and from what we've learned so far, we should have just gone to Chamonix and climbed everyday :)
 |
| Our route for day 2. Champex -> Le Chable was a stage on its own, but it just walked down the valley to Sembrancher, so we skipped it. |
We boarded the post bus from Champex-post (ie the post station in Champex - center of town). It seemed that every morning the first bus was 0825, and so it was on this day. The post bus driver again amazed us with his amazing ability to navigate sheer switchbacks with a full coach style bus, while avoiding the infrequent cow or compact car on the road. The bus took us down the switchbacks to Orsieres where we waited for a train to Le Chable via Sembrancher. While switching trains in Sembrancher we gazed up at the NE ridge of Le Catogne:
 |
| Climb right from the train station |
Check out that ridgeline! How sweet would that be to walk from the train station and run up that guy! The ridge stepeens out of the trees at around 750m, and the top of the rocky portion of the ridge is at about 1150m - 400 meters of vertical! And then there is the steep shadowed face... oh Osieres, we'll be back (maybe-probably not, see comments above regarding Chamonix).
Our second train brought us to the foot of the Verbier ski madness. I can't imagine what that place must look like in the winter. There were houses way up on the hill where I figure they must get totally covered in snow. Many of the houses had full wooden shutters for when they get snowbound. Not wanting to miss out on another mode of mass transport for the day, we bought a ticket for the lifts instead of walking the 1000+ meters up to the Cabane. We figured walking uphill under ski lifts was similar to walking downhill along valley roads, and we also mentally used the "honeymoon" excuse as we bought our tickets. We found out from friends later that the hike was actually rather enjoyable, oh well - we'll be back Verbier! (probably not - see comments above regarding Chamonix).
At the top of the lift we figured we had really pushed ourselves too hard up to that point and decided a pique-nique was in order (that is, we wanted to eat a lunch of bread and cheese followed by chocolate). We laid out on the side of the road in the alpine sunshine and ate our lunch as we watched paragliders sprint downhill before jumping into the air... pretty cool. The walk over to the cabane was fairly straightforward, and we arrived after about 1.5 hours from the lift.
 |
| pique-nique atop Verbier with paragliders readying for the takeoff |
 |
Scenery wasn't too bad for a hike...
|
 |
Cab du Mont Fort
|
 |
A horrible picture of the Grand Combin. This one we would come back to climb, joking about Chamonix aside.
|
Cabane du Mont Fort was the first cabin on our trek, and it is owned by the Suisse Alpine Club. They generally do things well - keep the cabane clean, and in good working order. Mont Fort was no exception, but the location left a bit to be desired against my imagination of an alpine cabin. It was smack dab in the middle of the Verbier ski area - there were lifts going right by the cabane. Would have been amazing in the winter, but I was hoping for a bit more of a remote feeling.... though this is the Alps! Can't complain... we took a bus, train and ski lift on our hike today....
 |
| beautiful fields all around our hike above Verbier |
 |
| Nicole posed for a picture in the flowers. Not sure what these foundations were for. Check the elephant in the background.... |
We relaxed out on the patio and took in the views of the Aiguille d'Argentiere peaks off to the southwest. We learned that the main route for the next day's hike was closed, so we'd have to climb up a slightly more exposed and rocky col instead, in likely deteriorating weather, yay! We ganged up with a few other teams of trekkers in our planning, though, and by the next morning we were not a bunch of random folks on the trail, but the "Aussies" leading the way with the GPS (not really needed though) and the London crew + suisse / canadaian to help us read the french on the signposts (not really needed, as the signposts just said the name of the town :)
 |
| Aiguille d'Argentiere and nearby peaks. This was the money view from the cabane patio... |
Just as dinner was being served the weather started to come in. The rain clouds gave plenty of warning as they swept up the valley and slowly enveloped the cabane. The rain didn't last too long, however, and soon after a strong rainbow formed directly over the Col de la chaux, our first climb on tap in the morning!
 |
virga, which quickly became rain, and enveloped our cabane
 |
| rainbow over the col de la Chaux (center right) |
|
 |
| already framed, had to take it! |
After enjoying some ridiculously rich macaroni and cheese, we chatted with new friends in the dining room and eventually went up to our room and fell asleep to the sounds of cowbells and light rainfall. We were all hoping it would blow over by the next day. And yeah, seriously... the cowbells were loud. I have video evidence from a few days later when we found their secret hideout.
 |
| Well marked. |
No comments:
Post a Comment