Haute Route Day 1

25-07-2016  Haute Route Day 1

      
    Haute Route 1 on Vimeo               Haute Route 2 on Vimeo          Haute Route 3 on Vimeo

1: Chamonix to Trient, 2 Stages together, with venture over over Col de Balme, side trip to Trient Glacier

Lodging: Hotel Le Grande Ourse, Trient

Haute Route Day 1 Google Earth File

Click on the link above and download it to your computer.  Then, open Google Earth and manually open and you can see the trail in 3D.

Our walk along the river leaving Chamonix.

We woke up really early today, since we were combining two stages from Kev Reynold’s guide book.  Out the door by 6:30!  Leaving Chamonix, we headed up the valley on the main road and found a trail that followed the river and headed towards the golf course.  Since this was out first section of the trail, I heavily studied Google Earth just to be sure we were going the right direction.  It worked.  We found a more direct route along the river and hit the golf course smack on!  

Katherine breaking through the morning clouds.

After the golf course, we stayed to the left of the river and had the trail to ourselves.  The hike was mostly flat, and then we hit some minor ups and downs to the village of Argentiere.  Argentiere was our first village we dropped into, and it was a fancy surprise after leaving Chamonix.  We saw tour groups leaving the train to begin the trek and trail runners.

Our first glimpse of Le Tour and the sound of cowbells in the distance.

Out of the town, we headed past the church and up, up, and up to Le Tour.  On the trail we ran into an older lady.  By older lady, I mean a woman hiking like a champ in her 80’s.  She was with her son and some trail runners passed.  A funny thing happened when the trail runners blasted by the group.  The son said that they need to slow down and take in the beauty of the trail and smell the flowers.  Then the lady mentioned that her son used to hike like that when he was younger, but just forgot.  Maybe old age gives you the need to go slowly and take it all in.  We would see many more trail runners along the trail and I am sure they are getting their fill of views, just at a faster pace.

Before getting to Le Tour, we had our first encounter with cows.  From a distance, I thought I heard some weird Swiss wind chimes.  Nope.  The music I heard from far away was the clanging of the infamous Swiss cows.  These might be dairy cows, or “fighting” cows, but whatever they are, they wear HUGE bells around their necks and just ding away with them.  No need to ask for “more cowbell,” they have it taken care of.  

We arrived at Le Tour and sat for a moment to eat some nuts, cheese, and eggs in the much needed shade.  We were now at the bottom of the ski resort.  Would we take the lift up?  No way!  It would shave time off the trek of course, but we are here to hike.  The sun was beating down on us and we were in for a trek up the mountain.

One of the many beautifully decorated houses along the way.

Katherine and the Col de Balme.

Our mission was the Col de Balme.  This col was the separation point between France and the Swiss Land.  We made it!  On the top, the clouds looked like they were forming into a rainstorm, but we got lucky and they dissipated. 

Now for the interesting part…. After crossing the Col, we headed straight right.  There were three trails to follow and we witnessed the guided group take the center one and we went right.  Later we would find this was a little “oops.”  We skirted the counter line up the valley towards Fenetre d’Arpette, which we knew was a little off target.  We were heading towards Trient, the city below, and now we were rocking it back up the valley.  Anne and Thomas were a bit ahead of us.  After an hour in which we found out to be the wrong direction, we saw them coming back down the trail.  Thomas said he saw the big glacier and we needed to turn around.  So, we did.  I took a compass heading off the church in Trient and saw where we were on the map.  We needed to backtrack a bit and take the “hunting” trail back down to that center trail. 

Me at the French-Swiss border.

Thomas and Anne crossing the snow to the glacier of Trient.

We caught a glimpse of a special game bird on this hunting trail on the way down.  As Katherine was crossing the switchbacks, there was a bit of heavy brush we had to pass through.  As she did this, she “kicked” up a partridge like bird that looked fat and tasty.  It flew low like game birds do, and found more cover never to be seen again.  

After what seemed like 1,000 switchbacks we made it to Trient.  We had to don our rain gear and march through 2 little villages to our hotel/hostel.  This was our first dorm and it was a requirement to take off your shoes in the basement and deposit them in the cubbies, for good reason.  They stank like high priced French cheese!

We found our room and talked with a USA dude named Mike from Cincinnati.  He spoke of a route the next day that would take us through a valley called Bovine which hosted a delicious apricot tart.  Once this intel was mentioned to Thomas, the mission of obtaining the apricot tart was top priority.  We would dodge the scary col tomorrow and go for the town of Bovine to conquer the tart.  

We had a hearty 3 course dinner in a hall with all the backpackers and happily conversed about our travels and then went immediately to bed.  We were wiped, and tomorrow would pose a new set of challenges which we had no idea about; the tart. 

This was our very nice 8 person dorm room.  After showers, everyone was doing well. 

I slept like a champ with the laundry line assembled provided cover to my bed, oh sweet security!  My tired legs twitched in the night and as soon as I knew it, it was time to tackle another day on the Haute Route.