Granada is awesome!
Wednesday, July 24, 2019
Traveling post walk
We're driving down to Spain to collect the boys. Spent a day in Barcelona and a day in Granada to break up the drive.
Tuesday, July 23, 2019
July 23, 2019 at 04:40PM
Just arrived in beautiful Granada. It is fuelling my door fetish well. #beautifulgranada #doorknobfetish #summerholidays. Via Instagram
Sunday, July 21, 2019
TMB Day 9: the finish - Col du la Forclaz to Champex Lac
We decided to skip the 9th stage between Tres le Champ and Trient, because we were both getting somewhat bored. Even though the scenery was still incredibly beautiful, we seemed to have become somewhat desensitised to its beauty. It just felt repetitive and since we were doing this for ourselves and didn't need to prove anything to anyone else, we made this decision with a clear conscience.
We caught two trains and a bus to Col de la Forclaz in Switzerland, which took just under an hour, and walked the last part of the TMB to Champex Lac. The trains and busses in the Chamonix valley are free for everyone staying there, which is very convenient.
The first part from Col de la Forclaz was a roughly 500m ascent to a place called the Bovine. It was true to its name and had a big herd of cows with the biggest bells we've seen so far. Their bells were bigger than my head! The place also smelled the part 🙊
What followed was a reasonably steep descent where we came across some annoying American hikers who decided to rest on the already very narrow and steep path. Around 13:00 we came to the saddle where we had lunch and then walked for another hour and a half uphill to the finish line. The last 30 minutes or so were again over concrete paths and roads, which was hard on the feet.
In Champex there also happened to be a bike race. The finish line was exactly where we came into town and there was a little band playing. Naturally we assumed this was for us. Jack had a celebratory swim in the mountain lake, which he found very invigorating. We then had two beers to celebrate and picked up our car. Since it was standing in the direct sun and it was warm for the last few days some of our stuff was well melted. Like the paint on some of our sunnies 😮 all of our reserve chocolate was also nicely hot and squishy.
We then drove to the town of Trient where we had our accommodation reserved for the night. It was a private apartment with our own bathroom and felt very luxurious after last night's attic. I was so excited that I must've spent 40 minutes in the shower. We sorted our gear and clothes and had dinner.
146km, 9 days, 3 shared dorms, 5 shared bathrooms, 1 hand organ, 3 ibex, 1 cold, 4 new insoles, 1 rainy day, 4 Cols, 1 Mont Blanc, 3 goats and 1 snake later we completed the Tour de Mont Blanc. And it was great! 🎉
Highlight of the day : going through the finish line.
Lowlight of the day : dinner in our hotel was pretty crappy compared to some of the other ones we had on the TMB. But really overall it was a very good day.
Saturday, July 20, 2019
Friday, July 19, 2019
TMB Day 8: Les Houches(cheating to La Brevent) to Tres le Champs
Today was another "cheating" day. Due to the fact that the regular refuge at Flegere is closed for renovations this summer we decided to stay in Tres le Champs, which is another good 2 hours walk from there. So we took the bus to Chamonix and two cable cars to La Brevent (~2500m). This way we saved ourselves about 5-6 hours of 1400 meters of ascent. As I said, we cheated 🙈 The cable cars were full of climbers and paragliders. It was a beautiful clear morning with not a cloud in sight. The peak of Mont Blanc was staring at us from across the valley. After making some pictures we started our descent.
Soon after we started we came across three goats. They came very close and seemed to be asking for food. They have very fluffy coats which I guess they need as it gets pretty cold in the mountains, even in summer. Almost immediately after that the path became scrambly and quite exposed. There were two ladders to climb down and a few scary open patches of rock. And a few of my favourite snow patches, which I came to fall half in again. "Not a graceful mountain goat you are" (add Yoda's voice). Eh, there are worse things in life.
It took us just under an hour to reach Plan Praz (~2000m). There were a lot of paragliders taking off from a patch of grass there. It seemed to have been a good day for it, because many of them were catching warm streams of air and rising very high above the valley.
We headed off north towards Flegere. This took a good 2 hours through fairly steep and exposed mountainside terrain. At Flegere serious construction work was going on with cranes and cement trucks. We stopped for lunch and after that descended further to our destination of Tres le Champs. This path was beautiful and ran through a pine forest. At one stage I was in front and a little black snake startled me as it made its way across the path just in front of me. After my immediate shock I quickly managed to get myself together to continue. I think slowly I'm getting over my phobia.
Just before 5pm we arrived in our dorm. We don't have to share the room with anyone else, but it's not really a room that we got, but space under the roof that only fits the two beds that we'll be sleeping on. There isn't even room to stand up straight there. But it's kinda cute (see last photo), and made me think of Harry Potter. Oh yeah, and cold showers this evening. Refreshing 😁
Highlight of the day : having a gorgeous direct view of Mont Blanc this morning from La Brevent 🤩
Lowlight of the day : a very steep and scrambling path just underneath the peak of La Brevent. Made me feel somewhat unsafe.
Thursday, July 18, 2019
TMB : more photos...
I'm going to use the opportunity of the good hotel WiFi and post some more photos from previous days...
Ibex...
TMB Day 7: Refuge de Miage to Les Houches
Breakfast was great today with crusty freshly baked bread and home made jams. We were done and ready by 7:10. First there was a 600 meter ascent to the Col de Tricot. This was the first time we beat the estimated time in the guide book. Their suggestion was one and a half hours and we did it in 1:12 (Jack) and 1:16 (me). On the other side of the pass we could see the glacier Bionnassay, which was beautiful in the rising rays of the sun.
The hillside on the descent had lots of flowers. It took us another hour to reach a suspension bridge over the glacial torrent. The book said reassuringly that its predecessors kept getting swept away either by avalanches or floods. This one seemed pretty solid though.
At about 11am we reached the top of the chairlift above Les Houches. We had a break and some lunch and then descended into town. The way down had some slippery uncomfortable scrambling parts, but most of it ran through a shady pine forest.
We arrived in town just before 3pm. We're staying in an actual proper hotel for the night and it makes a nice change to the dorm accommodation. Being able to take as long as you need under a warm shower is a luxury. Another awesome day on the TMB.
Highlight of the day : doing the washing in an actual washing machine at the hotel and playing pool while waiting for it to finish. Score 1:1 😁
Lowlight of the day : nothing really... It was a pretty good day.
Danger!
We come over a big pass today, and on the way down there's a danger sign. We leaving anyway, so it doesn't bother us.
Later we translated it. Turns out it says Danger keep your dog on a leash. Anticlimactic to say the least... And apparently only relevant to people reviewing in a certain direction...
Here's more photos
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