Our Hike Today

 

We left Champex-Lac excited knowing that today's hike wouldn't be as difficult as the last two days in terms of elevation gain (going up) and descent (going down). Funny, when you are going up and feeling short of breath you can wait to go down. However, going down is actually much harder on you body. So, we were glad to read in our guidebook that today's hike would take us through "lovely pastoral scenes and into several quaint villages."

 

 

And it was a day filled with breathtaking scenes punctuated by walks through some gorgeous villages. What we notice most is all the beautiful flowers, vegetable gardens, and the lack of strip malls, neon, and fast food places. We felt like we were stepping into another world - one where the people live as they have for hundreds of years.

 

 

 

We've learned that our guide book is absolutely essential for finding our way. Even though there are wonderful signs, we've had occasions to backtrack and read the guidebook AGAIN and then sometimes have actually "voted" on what way we should go.

 

You are going the WRONG WAY!

 

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Our Lovely French Breakfasts

 

Each of the places where we are staying have served us a traditional French breakfast of croissants, bread, jam, ham, cheese, fruit juice, and coffee. It is so wonderful to not have to worry about eating these delicious items knowing that we will be shortly burning hundreds of calories hiking. Or at least we haven't been worried.

We have been purchasing a few items for lunches at the grocery stores in each of the towns - some good bread (which I never eat at home), cheese, oranges,etc.

We've really enjoyed the food and the time to review our hike for the day. An interesting aside - even though we've been in Switzerland since the first day of the hike, French is spoken in most of the villages we are passing through. Towards the end of our hike, the language will transition to German. However, we don't have any strong German speakers in our group either:-)

 

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Some Trip Practicalities

 

One of the things about this trip is that it isn't "five star hotel" living. By the time we finally reach where we are staying, we are so exhausted and just want to lay down. HOWEVER, we are so sweaty and smelly we really can't. So we've been taking turns getting into a shower and then washing out all the clothes we've worn for day and hanging them up "to dry." Only problem is, that even with supposed quick drying materials, if the clothes are washed out at 6:30 at night, they aren't completely dry by 7:00 am - the time we've been trying to pack up by.

Tonight, when we arrived at our hostel room that all 4 of us were sharing, we had a combination of partially-dried clothes from yesterday plus newly washed clothes from today.

Oh, the wool socks - smell absolutely the worst and hardest to dry! But we don't have an option - if we had unwashed wool socks plus our 4 sets of boots out in the open, none of us would sleep! As I said, not 5 star hotel living!

 

 

 

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Sound of Music Day!

After snaking our way around the runners, we had lunch up in a meadow overlooking a beautiful panorama of mountains.

But that was just an inkling of the beautiful scenery to come! The surroundings, plus the fact that we were all feeling really good, made for a day we will always remember.

 

We even got to stop and have a Swiss beer mid-afternoon at this quaint little restaurant in the middle of a herd of cows.

 

We commented that our pictures can't provide the "all senses experience" we had today complete with sounds from the symphony of cow bells clanging and the concurrent smells from the "orchestra" of cows.

 

When left this marvelous little restaurant high in the mountains, the cows claimed part of the trail and we didn't argue.

 

As we continued our long trek to the next town, Champex-Lac, we passed many more beautiful sites including this cross set against the majestic mountains.

 

We finished the evening with a Swiss meal at a restaurant in beautiful Champex-Lac. It has been a great day!

 

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We Were "Part of" an International Sporting Event Today!

 

As we mentioned previously, there is a huge international event taking place in this area over 6 of the days we are here - Ultra Trail Du Mont Blanc. We saw all kinds of elite trail runners when we were in Chamonix and today, we just happened to be hiking the same part of the trail that more than 9500 runners were racing on!

 

We first got an inkling that something "was up" when we took a short break for Kris and Betsy's coffee after a successful 1 hour steep hike up the mountain after we left Trivent. This beautiful little inn was so quaint that even "Captain Kevin" agreed we could stop (we affectionately call him that because he is extremely responsible in making sure we don't get too off schedule with photo taking or coffee breaks).

We could see some larger crowds gathering as we began the next leg on the hiking trail. Of course, after lingering over coffee, Betsy and Kris were very intent on keeping a strict pace. All of a sudden we had some bystanders yelling at us in French - we didn't understand the words but got the idea - move off the narrow trail. Next thing we know is that three runners are coming at breakneck speed down the steep, rocky trail we were heading up. We stepped to the side and clapped for the runners like the bystanders. When they had passed, we started climbing again - once again, French was being yelled at us - we got the picture there were a lot more runners coming!

 

Sure enought, there were A LOT more runners coming - about 9500 according to the numbers we observed on their tags.

 

We finally resigned ourselves that we would be making very slow progress going up as we attempted to take a few steps between each group of runners. Of course we absolutely did not want to be the cause of any accidents, some we were careful to stand as close to the edge as possible and yell, "Bonjour! C'est Bon!" This was the extent of our limited knowledge of what might be appropriate to encourage these amazing athletes along. We must not have been entirely off base because many of the runners responded, "Merci!" as they passed. As we continued hiking the rest of the day over the same trail the runners had come from, we were filled with even more respect for their accomplishments!

 

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What a Difference a Day Makes!

Greg learned a little model in his spin class -"What the mind believes, the body can achieve," After my tough day yesterday, I pulled out all the secret weapons I had a my disposal (in addition to believing I could do this). I used my yoga straps for stretching and the special topical creme someone had recommended from Lakewinds Coop. I drank some "Calm" a special drink with magnesium in it for aching muscles (recommended by my friend Karen)

I put on my new knee brace I bought especially for the trip and took my "therapeutic dose" of Advil every four hours. The Advil container was pulled out during one of our breaks (see below).

 

I also had my "therapeutic dose" of Swiss chocolate when the going got tough -:)!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I focused on taking small steps, keeping my core strong even when I got tired, and going down sideways on the steepest part of descent. (Something I read about when I Googled knee pain on descent).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm very happy to report that I hiked 10 hours today with no knee pain! Kris felt her pack's weight was better - in fact, despite being very tired again at the end of the day, we all felt so much better than yesterday. We are very happy campers!

 

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The Rest of the Story About Our First Day

As I mentioned, we were so exhausted by our first day of hiking we fell into bed last night. We did want to share some of the highlights, however, before we finished hiking at 6 pm. As I mentioned, none of had slept well the night before, so we were starting at a deficit. In addition, we were still having some equipment issues (Kris played around with redistributing the weight several times in her pack) and Betsy ended up with some major knee pain on the 3 plus hours of extremely steep descent into Trivent. In fact, at the end, we sent Kevin and Kris ahead while Greg watched Betsy hobble with each step down.

 

But prior to the challenging descent, we enjoyed the amazing weather and some fabulous views of Mont Blanc to our rear as we reached the France/Swiss border and began the trek down to picturesque Trivent.

 

Here's photo of Kevin and Kris at our lunch stop.

Trivent was such a welcome sight after our tough descent and was beautiful. One of the landmarks is a beautiful church with the mountains in the background.

 

The place we stayed in was sort of an upscale hostel - some dormitory rooms and some private rooms but with bathrooms down a hall. We had a wonderful French dinner and breakfast in the morning. We were glad we had survived our first day but certainly we're sobered ( especially as everyone watched Betsy's descent)!

 

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Beautiful Weather, Challenging Hike!

First of all, NONE of us slept well last night at all! Maybe it was that our bodies were still on Minnesota time or maybe it was that we were all a little anxious about starting our hike. Regardless, we were packed up and ready to catch a bus (a short 20 minute ride) to Argentiere to start our hike. We got off in Argentiere but had some difficulty finding the trail head. Here's a photo of us starting off looking fresh and excited!

There were many wonderful things about the day - beautiful weather, amazing scenery,etc. However, we have confirmed the hike is very strenuous!! The uphill was very challenging, but the downhill was even more difficult.

We've arrived in Trient at about 6 pm.

 

We're exhausted and going to bed, but wanted everyone to know we had a great first day!

 

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It's Not "Sound of Music" Weather Today!

 

We woke up after a good night's sleep and saw what had been predicted - 100% chance of rain! Once again, we are getting a chance to "test our equipment," and feel that any weather in the days ahead will be better than this. We are filled with gratitude that we had planned this "layover recovery day" into our schedule and that we are not trail runners racing today.

We are using the day to rest, repack, and mourn the couple items we either forgot (Kevin and Kris forgot their pack rain covers) or decided, in the interest of lightening our packs, sent with the suitcase we left at hotel (Betsy left the Starbucks coffee packs and the traveling water heater wand in suitcase - Betsy and Kris were cursing that decision this morning!)

We were thinking this morning about the famous poem by Maya Angelou that contains this line

"I've learned that you can tell a lot about a person by the way he/she handles these three things: a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas tree lights."

We decided to re-write it to: "You can tell a lot about a person by the way he/she handles pouring rain on a long-awaited hike, no coffee first thing in the morning, and the fact that a few important items were left at home."

We're handling the above just fine!

 

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Our Evening in Chamonix

 

 

 

After settling in to Hotel Alpina, and to make ourselves stay up a while longer, we walked around Chamonix and found a place for dinner. There is a huge trail race in Chamonix the next few days, so there were large crowds of runners and observers in town.

While there were some low hanging clouds, we could still see some of Mont Blanc, the tallest peak in Europe.

The river running through Chamonix is "silvery" due to glacier silt. Our hotel is the taller building on left.

The city is beautiful - flowers everywhere. Here is the huge banner for trail race in the background.

 

After dinner, we went back to our hotel and had some much needed sleep!

 

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