The Walker's Haute Route Trip Report: Day 2

I'm not sure what we were thinking scheduling our longest day for our first day! Looking at the Kev Reynolds book at home, we decided that the phase from Chamonix to Argentiere just seemed too easy for a whole day's worth of hiking, so we decided to combine it with the phase from Argentiere to Trient. It turned out to be 16.8 miles. Between that and the jet lag, it probably would have been a good idea to either take the bus from Chamonix to Argentiere, and just hike from there, or stick with the easy first day...

Day 2: Chamonix-Argentiere-Trient-Col de la Forclaz

Given the long travel day yesterday, we didn't rush right out the door in the morning. We probably didn't get up until about 8, and then we had a leisurely (and super yummy) breakfast. We also went to the grocery store and bakery to get cheese, salami, chocolate, and bread for lunch. This was our lunch of choice throughout the trip. We never bought lunches from the hotels or huts (and others who did, didn't have great things to say about them). We probably set off on our hike around 10 am.

Really sad that I blinked in this shot! The restaurant we ate at the night before is right along the river near the next bridge down. It was such a lovely town! Another reason to do the easy hike on Day 1, is that it would give you time to explore Chamonix a little bit.

 These two pictures were pretty much the extent of our time in Chamonix. 

We weren't sure how easy it would be to follow the directions in the Kev Reynolds book, but it was really clear what he was talking about once we were actually there in person. The "hike" from Chamonix to Argentiere was pretty much what we expected--a path just off the side of the road. You couldn't see the road, but it was just on the other side of the trees. It was all pretty flat walking through the valley.

We found some pretty nice views though!

At one point, we got over-anxious about taking a right turn up a hill, and we ended up going up the side of the mountain only to have to come back down again...By the time we got to Argentiere, I could already feel blisters forming (I guess that's what happens when you can't decide on a pair of shoes until 2 weeks before the trip.) We stopped to apply moleskin and eat our lunch. I'm kind of sad we didn't look around Argentiere at all. We just passed right through. This was actually the one other place we got a little "lost." We just weren't paying attention, and we missed a turn. We ended up doing a loop and coming back to where we missed the turn. It probably added half a mile or so. We laughed at ourselves when we realized how obvious the instructions in the book were if we had read them more closely.

The hike from Argentiere to the Col de Balme was our first major ascent. It wasn't crazy steep, but as with most of the hikes, it was a very long uphill, followed by a seemingly endless downhill. 

About halfway to the Col, there were actually chair lifts running. I was seriously tempted to ride it up as the exhaustion was kind of starting to hit, but I knew Justin is a purist and would never want to ride up a chair lift when we could just walk, so I decided to tough it out.

We made it to the Col de Balme!! Behind me you see France.

Behind Justin you see Switzerland! 

We now have something in common with the Von Trapps...we have crossed the Alps into Switzerland!!

We then started the long slog down the mountain. About the time we got to the treeline, it started raining. When we were under the canopy, it wasn't too bad. We did eventually have to put our rain jackets on once we came out of the trees (which kept us dry on the outside, but I'm not going to lie, it was like a sweat locker inside that thing... I was completely soaked from the inside by the time we got to the hotel!). I can't emphasize enough how long the downhill through the forest seemed. I was ready for it to be done about an hour before it actually was. We then walked along the bottom of a valley into Trient. I was incredibly disappointed to realize that the hotel we had booked was the structure that we could see halfway up the next mountain. Anyone planning on combining the first two days should really not plan on staying at the Hotel de La Forclaz. I was totally spent, but we had to trudge up, up, up. There was a point (probably 200 yards from the hotel) where the trail was basically a really big staircase. I totally hit the wall. I sat down on a step and told Justin I couldn't go any further and that I'd just stay there for the night. It was one of those times where I could feel that I literally had no energy left at all, and hence couldn't control my emotions either. Fortunately, Justin had some delicious chocolate handy, and two squares gave me enough energy to make it the rest of the way to the hotel. We arrived around 6 pm, which gave us just enough time to shower before dinner. Justin might have been a little tired, but I could barely walk up and down the stairs! Also, I realized that I really wished I had my flip flops with me instead of my sketchers. My feet were so sore that the last thing I wanted to do was put them into my stretchy elastic Sketchers. (I'd chosen them because I thought it would be too cold for flip flops. I was wrong.) Anyway, we had dinner that night with a couple from Israel who were just finishing up the Tour of Mont Blanc. One of our favorite things about the trip was getting to know people from all over the world. After dinner, I went upstairs, and I'm pretty sure I was asleep by 8 pm. I was totally exhausted!

The Walker's Haute Route Trip Report: Day 1

Goodness it's been a long time since I posted anything on this lovely blog...six whole years!! Much like video killing the radio star, I think instagram killed the personal blog. So what am I doing here all these years later? I decided that the best way to record and share our recent trip-of-a-lifetime to Switzerland would be here on my blog. As we were preparing for the trip, we found the information that other people shared on their blogs and websites an invaluable resource, so in order to document our fun and share what we learned with others, I'm posting our trip report here.

Day 1: Albuquerque-Minneapolis-Amsterdam-Geneva-Chamonix

Oh what an incredibly long day! We left for Albuquerque around 10 am. We had to stop at REI before going to the airport because after looking at the weather reports, we decided there was a very good chance we'd be hiking through rain the entire trip, and Justin's only rain jacket wasn't exactly waterproof.  It's amazing how relaxing and not stressful flying is when you are only traveling with adults. It's also pretty nice when you are only traveling with small-ish backpacks. We flew together to St. Paul, and then we were booked for two different flights from there to Amsterdam. Fortunately, the nice lady at the Delta counter was able to switch my flight to go on the earlier flight with Justin (this was apparently such a big no-no, that she didn't even charge us the flight change fee because she didn't want to leave any record of the transaction). It was nice to be together for the long flight over the ocean--especially since I got super motion sick at the end. I made it all the way until we landed before I threw up...We had a few hours of a layover in Amsterdam, but I was feeling so exhausted and nauseous, that we opted for sleeping on the floor rather than trying to go into the city at all. Justin was kind enough to take the picture of me conked out on the floor.

We were excited to finally get on our last flight to Geneva! When we arrived, we were very disappointed to find out that our shuttle was delayed due to some sort of car fire at the tunnel, so we had to wait a couple of hours...

The drive to Chamonix took about an hour, but it provided us with our first views of the Franco-Swiss Alps and Mont Blanc! We used Chamonix Valley Transfers, and it cost 35 Euros each (which seemed to be the going rate for most of the shuttle services). It was easy to book and they were very friendly. 

Oh how happy we were to get to our hotel in Chamonix!! We stayed at Hotel Le Faucigny, which was right in the center of town and had one of the best breakfasts of the trip! The person at the hotel offered to keep the hot tub open for us, but we'd basically been awake for about 24 hours at that point, so we really just wanted to eat some dinner and go to bed. We were very grateful for the restaurant recommendation. We ate at Cap Horn, which was one of our top two favorite meals of the entire trip. It was also one of the cheapest (due to the fact that food in Switzerland turns out to be insanely expensive)! Justin had to try escargot since we were in France. They were actually really yummy! I guess if you soak anything in enough butter and herbs, it will be delicious. We both chose the fish (which was amazing), and a cheesecake and sorbet dessert that was fantastic. The whole meal probably took two hours, and I may have started dozing off between courses, but it was totally worth it for the delicious food. When we finished dinner, we wandered around the center of town a little bit (and Justin took a video of me). But then we went back to the hotel and crashed! We had to get some sleep for the long day ahead of us on Day 2! Here's me (obviously tired) talking about our dinner: