Day 4 – Verbier to Cabane de Louvie

(take 3, stoopid buggy prerelease software)
12km, 700m up, 700m down. Steps: 13.4k indicated, at least 29k actual.

Lazy start with Breakfast at 8. everything just seemed to take forever this morning for some reason. After a brief disagreement with the credit card machine (signatures seem so retro) we bid farewell to Hotel Ermitage and got on our merry way.

Well, as far as La Poste anyway where a helpful postmaster helped send about 1kg of Paul’s stuff on to Grimentz.

Dinner last night was a properly thin and crispy Pizza au 4 Saisons ate on the terrace, looking down the valley. We were hiding under a parasol, but there was free suncream for those braving the evening sun.

Once we’d got up the hill from Verbier, the first leg of the walk was nice and easy. A relatively flat track that let us get a couple of km under our belts and at least keep up with sign time.

However, we had to eventually turn onto a narrow path that seemed barely adequate to walk along, so imagine our surprise when a group of mountain bikers came along on a day trip from Martigny.Have I mentioned how hot it was yet?

After a bit of map reading to make sure we weren’t affected by a signed path closure, we turned off uphill at Le Mintset on what the map suggested finished with A Hard Bit before Col Termin.

We quickly learned why the maps have different labels for the Walking Paths and the Mountain Routes. Challenging slopes, slightly dodgy ‘where’s the path going now?!’ navigation, chains to hang onto when reading from the book of ‘no really, don’t look down’, steep scree traverses, steeper snow field traverses and other such peril.

I found the scree boulder fields to be mostly fine underfoot, benefits of long legs I guess, but I casually leant against a rock, which promptly fell away in my hand. Oopsy doo.

The snow, on the other hand, was more annoying. It was nice and cool on my hands and feet, but very slushy and slippery. Definately a case of maintaining 3 points of contact at all times, leaning into a stride led to your boot moving unexpectedly.

Speaking of being allowed a little bit of peril, there was one section clearly signed ‘rockfalls, stopping is forbidden’, it contained a couple of scree traverses and some snow and this is where we caught up to another couple of walkers who were less certain underfoot. I was mostly looking up nervously, but was still glad that I didn’t see the cause of a thunderbolt-like rumble or 2 behind me once we were safely across..

.We met a lone chap walking the other way, he was across the snow and scree without breaking a stride, we figured it was mostly technique with a twist of wanting to be across as quickly as possible.

The final slog of up was properly steep, esp in that heat. I didn’t have much of a sense of deja vu when we got to Col Termin, despite having walked much of that route in 2003. Good view of Grand Combin and back towards Bovine though.

I did pause a few times to take more photos of some of the alpine flowers, I love how a plant so small can throw out flowers that good. I wonder what the names are and whether they’d grow in Yorkshire.

We were warned of some late snows up high in the sheltered passes, including above Grimentz.A quick bite of snackage at the Col and we started down, down, down (and rebound) to lose the 400m to Lac de Louvie, a dammed lake in a natural hanging valley. The whole basin was very picturesque, handy to take our minds (if not our eyes) off the dodgy path and steep descent.

Reasonably well developed valley, including a few stone storm shelters, one labelled in French ‘abandon hope all ye who enter here’. Not sure where the wood came from for the ashes of a campfire, we’re way above the tree line here.The Cabane was a most welcome sight, the guardians showed us around whilst we tried to un-zombify ourselves.

Paul was back to himself after recovering quickly, but I was starting to struggle. Rehydrating from the lovely cold water was nice enough, but the sun and lack of lunch had drained my IQ solidly. It wasn’t helped when my nose kicked off again from the altitude either. Not a good couple of hours.

The Cabane was privately owned and run well, very impressive facilities. Only 10ish people booked in for the night so we only had to share the dorm with 2 others. The shower was generous, 4 doses of 30seconds each. Nicely hot and I remembered the lessons from Prafleuri last time so was done before the first 30secs were up.

I didn’t unzombify until I’d got outside dinner, soup and plenty of lasagne with refreshing water melon for afters. Dinner kept the guardians busy, a couple of groups of young fit types ‘popped up from the valley’ for food and chat. This seemed impressive at the time, doubly so after I’d done that descent.

We shared a table with a couple from near Martigny who knew the area pretty well, but only spoke enough English to go on holiday. It was fun practicing my French to find out what’s good to do in the area that isn’t mountains. Learnt about the famous Chemin de Vignoble (vinyard path) and a couple of good organisations to look up on the web, as well as the Bisses of Valais; a collection of mid height walks along waterways. They reinforced Paul’s good opinion of Sion too.

Col de la Forclaz to Champex via Alp Bovine
15km, 900m up, 660m down. 17k steps.

These pedometers from the GCC are utter rubbish, there’s no way I averaged paces that big over that terrain, or even when ministry of silly walking down a road. I’ll keep quoting them for comedy value, but the GCC website is going to get something closer to reality, 40cm paces on flat going down to 20 for up and down.

Anyway, after treating ourselves to a lie in after yesterday’s pain, we started off straight uphill, thankfully through the shade of forest. My uphill mode is slow and ploddy, so was soon overtaken by a few people doing the TMB backwards, including a british father and son team with whom we chatted for a bit.

It was further uphill than we remembered, stepping over rocks and tree roots wasn’t a patch on yesterday’s morning, tho perhaps more realistic of what’s to come. The sun shone very strong today, which led to many photographic pauses on the way up. We were treated to some good views down the hazy valleys to Verbier and Martigny, ignoring that 2hours on a post bus would see us to Grimentz and what’s this about spending 10days walking there?

We emerged from the climb at the gate overlooking the Alpage Bovine, which has come on a bit since we were last there. A gratuitous pause for a great light lunch of cheese and sausage meant we left the high point of 1975m about midday.The descent towards Champex was, err, challenging. Steep, rocky and / or rooty ground and the scorching sun meant we made slow progress. At least we didn’t have to go up it though like many TMBers, nor did we see how on earth we managed to get lost when we were last here.The final stretch through the valley was slightly uphill, but on good tracks or roads. It was hot enough for Paul to leave a boot print in the tar, but also too hot for me to be bothered to take a photo.

A fortuitous water trough in Champex en Haut meant restocking our platypusses with gorgeous cold fresh water for the final few km to Pension en Plein Air, which has also changed a bit. The rooms are still the same, but the bank of internet PCs are now a big flat telly, sofas and a pool table.

Arriving at 3 gave us plenty of time to wash stuff before the place fills up later on.Following on from rule #1, tomorrow’s route is moving from Cabane col de Mille to Verbier, neatly avoiding a heowge ascent that wasn’t looking so clever any more.

Also means we can visit shops for posting stuff and aquiring man-flu busting Swiss Pharmaceuticals and something to help with the interesting collection of blisters and bruises I’m accumulating. Apparently hiking boot insoles are s’posed to be replaced more frequently than never every 7 years, who knew?

Day 1 – Le Couteray to Col de la Forclaz, via Col de Balme and Les Grands.
Ow. Ow. Pain. We’re broken. Do not pass go, award Jo C 3 I told you so’s.

Up bright and early for a 7am breakfast, bid our farewells to Belle Vue and headed onwards and upwards.

About 1000m up, 800m down, 15km along, 23k steps.

We couldn’t have asked for a better morning (well, I could have done without the sore throat, heralding a bout of man flu 2 alpine holidays in a row >.<). The morning's climb was hard but steady, we even managed to beat sign time to Col de Balme by 20mins, on a 3hr15 route. 7km, 8k steps, 900m of up. A good morning.s work.