Sabbatical - 8/15 - The Worst Hike of the Tour
The first day of the Tour du Mt Blanc was gloomy with sprinkles of rain throughout. The second day was, from a hiking perspective, a full on weather catastrophe. Naturally, this was the longest single day of hiking of the entire trip. I'll demonstrate by linking some pictures. Photos nineteen through twenty-one in this set are from August 15. Yes, there are only three pictures. It was raining too hard most of the time to take my camera out, and after the first hour the visibility was so lousy you couldn't seen anything more than 100 feet away.
I'm told that it was a beautiful hike, not that I could tell with the heavy cloud cover and limited visibility. It was certainly a long hike. The day's agenda was to hike approximately eleven miles. This included a 4,000 foot ascent up to a mountain pass and then 3,000 feet descent back down toward out destination. Eleven miles was easily our longest daily mileage total, and I believe that this was also the biggest altitude change of the trip as well.
If you took out the rain and cold, it wasn't actually too bad. Almost all of the ascent followed the course of an old Roman road up the mountain. It was both a Saturday and a national holiday, the Feast of the Assumption, so we passed plenty of other day hikers pretty much from the moment we left Les Contamines. It was flat for maybe half a mile until we passed a church that was all set up for the festival. From there we had a relatively steep ascent for hours. It was certainly a road, but the Roman idea of a paved road was still narrow, slippery and right on the edge of a cliff at points. We saw a few four wheel drive pick up trucks pass us en route to the small farms and cabins at altitude, but I doubt any lesser vehicle could have climbed it.
At one point, we passed a large iron cross that was put up many years ago by someone who survived a horrible wagon accident. We also crossed a bridge over the Notre Dame Gorge. That was as high as most of the day hikers were going because of the weather. After that we only saw 'serious' hikers. Some of them were having their bags hauled on mules. This unfortunately led to a recurring theme on the hike: the trail had mule shit everywhere. You always had to watch your step on the Tour.
In any event, with all the rain and altitude it was pretty cold. My rain gear worked pretty well, but eventually even my superhuman resistance to cold was worn down. There was a small building near the pass where I changed into my long john top, watch hat and gloves. I also pulled on the rain pants, which I hadn't bothered with previously. This was the only day that I needed the cold weather gear, and I'm glad that I had it. This was also the only part of the entire trip where I had to use my hands to ascend part of the trail, although thankfully that was only on a small portion over a rain swollen creek.
I was still pretty slow relative to the rest of the group so I was in the trailing group with one guide and the only person consistently slower than me. We stopped for lunch at Refuge de la Croix du Bonhomme, which is basically at the very top of the pass. I found a blog post that indicates the view is gorgeous, but I only saw clouds when I was there.
From there it was all downhill en route to Bourg-Saint-Maurice, where our hotel awaited us. Most of the way down was muddy sheep pastures (most of the Tour is on private property). We actually saw a shepherd and his dogs moving the flock. They didn't look any happier about the weather than we did.
The van picked us up at the end of the pastures and took us into town. My roommate already had the clothesline set up. I took a shower (really more of a bath, that hotel didn't have a real shower). It had been a cold miserable tiring day, and I just wanted to sit, but we were headed out to a group dinner at La Petite Auberge. I would have settled for "filling", but instead I got the best single meal I had while I was in Europe.
The restaurant was closed for the holiday, but our guides had made prior arrangements so they opened just for us with a limited menu. Regrettably, I did not photograph the menu or take detailed notes, but on the last day of the hike every single person in the group agreed that this was the best meal we had on the hike. I specifically remember some roasted aubergines. I don't normally like eggplant, but they had small delicate ones unlike the ones that are standard in the U.S., and they were delicious. I enjoyed multiple courses and drank some of the excellent local wines (the "house red" in Savoie, or indeed in France, is better than fancy wines in most places) and had a fine dessert. And then I passed the heck out back at the hotel.
I'm told that it was a beautiful hike, not that I could tell with the heavy cloud cover and limited visibility. It was certainly a long hike. The day's agenda was to hike approximately eleven miles. This included a 4,000 foot ascent up to a mountain pass and then 3,000 feet descent back down toward out destination. Eleven miles was easily our longest daily mileage total, and I believe that this was also the biggest altitude change of the trip as well.
If you took out the rain and cold, it wasn't actually too bad. Almost all of the ascent followed the course of an old Roman road up the mountain. It was both a Saturday and a national holiday, the Feast of the Assumption, so we passed plenty of other day hikers pretty much from the moment we left Les Contamines. It was flat for maybe half a mile until we passed a church that was all set up for the festival. From there we had a relatively steep ascent for hours. It was certainly a road, but the Roman idea of a paved road was still narrow, slippery and right on the edge of a cliff at points. We saw a few four wheel drive pick up trucks pass us en route to the small farms and cabins at altitude, but I doubt any lesser vehicle could have climbed it.
At one point, we passed a large iron cross that was put up many years ago by someone who survived a horrible wagon accident. We also crossed a bridge over the Notre Dame Gorge. That was as high as most of the day hikers were going because of the weather. After that we only saw 'serious' hikers. Some of them were having their bags hauled on mules. This unfortunately led to a recurring theme on the hike: the trail had mule shit everywhere. You always had to watch your step on the Tour.
In any event, with all the rain and altitude it was pretty cold. My rain gear worked pretty well, but eventually even my superhuman resistance to cold was worn down. There was a small building near the pass where I changed into my long john top, watch hat and gloves. I also pulled on the rain pants, which I hadn't bothered with previously. This was the only day that I needed the cold weather gear, and I'm glad that I had it. This was also the only part of the entire trip where I had to use my hands to ascend part of the trail, although thankfully that was only on a small portion over a rain swollen creek.
I was still pretty slow relative to the rest of the group so I was in the trailing group with one guide and the only person consistently slower than me. We stopped for lunch at Refuge de la Croix du Bonhomme, which is basically at the very top of the pass. I found a blog post that indicates the view is gorgeous, but I only saw clouds when I was there.
From there it was all downhill en route to Bourg-Saint-Maurice, where our hotel awaited us. Most of the way down was muddy sheep pastures (most of the Tour is on private property). We actually saw a shepherd and his dogs moving the flock. They didn't look any happier about the weather than we did.
The van picked us up at the end of the pastures and took us into town. My roommate already had the clothesline set up. I took a shower (really more of a bath, that hotel didn't have a real shower). It had been a cold miserable tiring day, and I just wanted to sit, but we were headed out to a group dinner at La Petite Auberge. I would have settled for "filling", but instead I got the best single meal I had while I was in Europe.
The restaurant was closed for the holiday, but our guides had made prior arrangements so they opened just for us with a limited menu. Regrettably, I did not photograph the menu or take detailed notes, but on the last day of the hike every single person in the group agreed that this was the best meal we had on the hike. I specifically remember some roasted aubergines. I don't normally like eggplant, but they had small delicate ones unlike the ones that are standard in the U.S., and they were delicious. I enjoyed multiple courses and drank some of the excellent local wines (the "house red" in Savoie, or indeed in France, is better than fancy wines in most places) and had a fine dessert. And then I passed the heck out back at the hotel.