Day 9 – Evolene to Cabane de Moiry

2040m of up, 520m down. just over 20km of along.

eeish. How did we survive that one? great end to a tough day.

It was our hardest day so far, longer and more challenging than even the approach to Louvie, tho less technical. I credit Paul’s stash of Haribo winegums for keeping my mind working on that last scramble.. We compared our route to Kev’s and his estimation was low, even taking into account our bus hop from Les Hauderes to La Forclaz. We measured it with string to even out the kinks and had us giggling in disbelief.

We managed our early start, leaving the hotel bang on 730, including a detour to take on water from the village fountain that should have been plenty to catch the 739 bus up the hill slightly. Or it would have been if it was a Saturday so we’d missed the 728 bus by a couple of mins after misreading the timetable. Oopsy do. Rather than sit around for a couple of hours, we walked back up the valley to Les Hauderes in ideal cool, fresh conditions. The 4km took us about an hour so we had a bit of a wait in Les H.

Joined the popular postbus up the valley as far as La Forclaz, the morning was made by 2 Australians struggling a bit and wanting a return to ‘as far as you go’.

Our chosen route zig zagged upwards very nicely through a couple of hamlets and forests, it added miles to the flat distance but was hugely more satisfying than barging directly up the side like everyone else was. There wasn’t much in the time either.

The final slog from 2580 to Col Du Tsate was seriously unpleasant, the crow soaring overhead on the thermals might as well have been a vulture. It probably took us an hour to do the last 300m scramble up to a well earned lunch just before 2pm.

We met a British couple, she ran a trekking business and was seeing about gluing some of days together, with a goal of C-Z in 11 days. E.g. pulling Cab de Prafleuri through to Les Hauderes in one 11 hr day. It was interesting to see how light the professionals travelled (and how fast they walked!)

The descent into Val de Moiry was much easier than the way up, there was even evidence of people sledging down in the snow! We were rewarded with a growing view of the Lake, the Glacier and the surrounding mountains, not to mention playing the ‘spot the hut’ game on the far side of the valley.

Paused at the busy Parking du Glacier for a tea and a cereal bar before focussing our depleted self preservation instincts on the climb upwards. The Buvette (drinks and snacks vendor) had a couple of signs up. The first was ‘we sell ice creams’. The second was ‘we’re sorry, we can’t sell ice creams because an avalanche took out our generator’.

The last leg was only another 1hr 25 sign time, how hard can it be?

…

The route was a steady 100m climb up to a ridge of glacial morraine, easy underfoot until then. If you’re not happy with striding edge, I’d advise against looking down there, a couple of bits were quite narrow, though we didn’t notice it at the time.

It finished with a seasonal snow field traverse, a bit of a scramble and a steep zigzag path to get us up the last 300m to a tremendously welcome sight, the Cabane and its only just opened, copper clad, extension. The view from there over the glacier is just breathtaking, which is one of the reasons that half the wall is window.

Being right at the head of the valley means you’re surrounded by mountains, the horizon is overhead and all jaggedy and interesting.

Long and varied day with many successes and a lot of pain, not sure why this triumph ended on a huge high rather than the low of last time, perhaps only being exhausted rather than ill helped.

Nowhere in uk could we have done that, 2.5 snowdons maybe?

really good evening at the cabane, good crowd to chat to. Mountaintime def in obeyance: Dinner at 7. Breakfast 6 till half 7 with most of it gone when we surfaced at 7. Every bench full, a good craic on. Met one army bloke from north of catterick, training to be mountain instructor, a scary level of fitness and ability in that crowd, military scale of brewing up 🙂

Met another london bloke who seemed to be doing shuttle runs between chamonix and zermatt!

Day 8 – Arolla to Evolene

13ish km, 700m down. 18k steps

Plans on an early start sabotaged by the best night’s sleep for a while, Grand Hotel Kurhaus is worth coming back to. Good spread for breakfast too, tho still full of last night’s dinner.

Arolla was busy, a few groups coming and going with coaches standing by. Resisted the call of the hiking kit shop, settled for reading about the Guided trips up to the glacier, fun but the kit list was extensive.

Straightforward day’s walking down the valley to Evolene, a village big enough to get its own bypass. Slightly overcast and wonderfully cool air led to a deceptively swift pace whilst we watched the mountains drift by.

We paused to poke around the stream a bit, tho it was quite fast flowing so care, or long legs, were required to cross it. Which led us straight back across on the next bridge down, one of the morning’s less useful sections of path. I bowed to temptation and made with the Sudafed, lets see if the over the counter version messes less with my mind than the common or garden Active. Half an hour later, my nose eased and I became somewhat hard of thinking. Grr.

We saw evidence of an ultimate fitness route, there were some obstacle course style contraptions every now and again, accompanied by signs (sponsored by Zurich) inviting the hypothetical reader to do things like 30 pull ups on a pair of rings. Owch.

We’re not quite sure how the Pension at Lac Bleu exploits the Belgians (part of its signage), but its fishing pond and multilingual signs seemed a little contrived for my taste. Judging back the cars milling around, it attracted the Dutch effectively too.

Paul picked us a picnic from Arolla’s shop which we munched next to the river between Les Hauderes and Evolene, about a mile from where the cheese was made. Yum. Tho my backpack smells of cheese a bit now.. The camp sites were doing a solid trade and we saw quite a few groups of climbers setting up around the valley walls.

Plenty of butterflies on the way, tho they scattered as soon as we’d unlimbered the cameras.Evolene is a fairly large village, big co-op on the end, many hotels and restaurants on the main street and a whole bunch of nooks and crannies between the traditional buildings.

Hotel Hermitage is easy to find on the main street, they speak good English and were quite happy when we rocked up about 2ish. A quick boule of citron sorbet from the village, an unexpected by most welcome punnet of juicy strawberries and lying back on the balcony has done wonders to restore me. Crossing fingers that an unblocked nose is NOT an invitation to bleed again, must not get complacent.

Staring up at the valley wall in disbelief at what we’re planning for tomorrow, the newly extended Cabane de Moiry via Col du Tsate. As far up as 2900 metres. Twice. Heard a few more English voices today, though we’re very much still the minority amongst the tourists.

Day 7 – Sion to Arolla, via Siriez

Apparently i missed fireworks and a thunderstorm last night, so I slept better than I thought. Today’s the last day off, back to walking again for us after this.

Not much to report on, apart from a few fun shops in Sion, wine tasting w/ tapas and the biggest cheese counter I’ve seen in a long while. First port of call was dumping our bags at the station whilst we had a tour of the ski resort at Nendaz on our way to rescue Paul’s poles from the cafe at Siriez. Nendaz looked bigger than Verbier, could be where the smart money goes, esp as they’re connected by cable cars.

Back to Sion for a sandwich for lunch before heading up Val d’Herens to tonight’s destination. 3 days roasting in the valley was plenty for me, I’m most glad to get back up again. Air fresher and temperature nearer sane.

Paused to change in Les Hauderes, just outside the dodgy hotel we stayed in in 2003. Doesn’t seem to have changed much, neither does its bar that we monopolised.

Arolla looks like I remebered it, but Grand Hotel Kurhaus is very, well, grand! Old in the right places and new in others, it sports wifi, proper leather sofas in one of the lounges with proper 10′ ceilings, a good library, extracts from 100 year old guest books and an old wooden globe. I’ve always wanted to try spinning one of those! It’s aged better than Hotel Weishorn, tho that could be to do with its pricing strategy. In any event, I’m visibly lowering the tone of the living room in my rumbled walking shirt and trousers, sniffing away to my phone.

The valley walls are remarkably severe, even for the alps, but the view across to the mountains between us and Grimentz is splendid.Val d’Herens seems very popular with Belgians and the Dutch. Les Hauderes was nearly crawling with Dutch Scouts and every third car sported a B or NL, with a few UK plates thrown in for good measure.

Proper wood fires add to the ambience and the 4 course dinner was great, if a touch large.