Haute Route Day 2 to Les Chable

Today we attempted to combine two stages. While this made sense in many ways it was also a bit of a reach. 

The trail from the hotel begins as a gentle stroll and quickly turns into a steep grade with many sketchy situations. We saw a helicopter fly over and it appeared to be searching. This did little for our confidence as we had heard that the pass was a little slippery with snow.  We scrambled over boulders and inched our way along eroded steep trails. All the while our trek was overshadowed by the incredible Trient glacier. It snakes down the mountainside with a blue tongue.  Others may disagree but I found the challenging trail well worth it. 

One disappointment was the large school group at the top. They took over the pass and were exceptionally loud. They diminished the experience slightly. 

The trip down the other side of the pass was slippery due to scree and small gravelly rocks. Next we walked over a snow field. It was not too bad. Then we had to clamber over a boulder field following red and white markings on rocks. This went in for awhile and was not the greatest fun.   We leaped frogged with a few people on the trail. 

We finally made it to the Relais Arpette hut. We stopped and had some cool drinks. The waitress also nicely called the Cabane Mont Fort and made reservations for us. That was one thing off my mind.  We bumped into a couple of people that we had leapfrogged in the trail. They were done in. Despite the fact they beat us to the hut. They said we had a pretty good pace. 

We headed down to Champex. We found out about transportation and Leah bought a replacement visor to replace the one that she left at the hotel. We tried to take a photo of the lake but were yelled at for being on private property. We were allowed to take a photo but then we quickly exited. 

We decided that 8 more miles was a bit more that we were up for. Instead we hoped to hike to Sembrancher and catch the train from there to Les Chable. 

We hiked down and got confused at a junction in the trail. Luckily a local lady named Margarite happened by and pointed us in the right direction. We chatted quite a bit with her. In the end she convinced us to walk down to Orsires and catch the train there. We almost ran down the mountain as she told us the last train was at 5:08. We were panicking when we got there at 5:06. However all was well we were able to buy tickets and the train didn't come until 5:15. The train was great- very easy.  

We got to Les Chable and a nice man helped us find our hotel. The Hotel La Poste was great. They were very accommodating.  They even laid out breakfast for us so we could leave early.  Our room was very nice.