Sunday, September 2nd
We woke up on the second day of our Tour de Mont Blanc (TMB) to Sue exclaiming "It's clear!". We ran outside to see the mountains and glacier that were hidden in yesterday's mist. The waterfalls, that dominated the landscape yesterday, were now almost insignificant in light of the now grander view. There must be a lesson in there somewhere - maybe about appreciating what you see but not forgetting there may be hidden treasures...
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| The mist covered the mountains |
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| Sue with view of the Glacier behind her! |
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We had the basic breakfast of good coffee with hot milk, bread, butter, jam and cornflakes, and were on the trail before 8 am. A steep uphill took us towards Refuge Le Truc on the other side of the ridge. We enjoyed the best chorus of cowbells I have ever heard. Enjoy this 27 second movie clip so you can sing along!
We then began the long gentle
mostly downhill walk to Les Contamines. What a pretty town! Every building was covered in flower-filled window boxes. There was also a garden dedicated to a local
artist, Samivel, that showcased covered posters of his alpine art. We enjoyed wandering through this garden and beautiful town.
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| The garden devoted to Samivel's art. The poster on the right translates roughly to this lovely sentiment: "Collect beautiful memories but do not pick the flowers. Do not tear the plants away, for they will grow stones. It takes many stems to weave a man." |
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We bought some groceries in Les Contamines as we won't go through any other towns over the next three days. Our breakfasts and dinners are covered at the huts, but we needed lunch and snack foods. We then walked
slowly up the river valley, stopping for lunch at a church before the track
headed up more steeply.
If you squint you may be able to see the two paragliders in the sky above the church. The parsonage also has some decorative woodpile on the front! The wood stays dry because of the large overhang but it wouldn't be easy to access for burning.
Then we went up, up, up, over a Roman Bridge to the
Refuge de Nant Borrant. We arrived just before the clouds moved in and the temperature cooled. We got into our dorm room for six, not nearly as roomy or sweet as our private cabin yesterday. I had a
glass of wine while I wrote in my journal. When it got colder outside, we went
into the dorm and talked with one of our bunkmates, a young epidemiologist
named Lauren from Sacramento, about health care issues. Then Colleen and I went
for a short walk before dinner and found a lost Asian hiker on a side path. He
was looking at his phone to figure out how to find his refuge. We determined it
was about 3 km up the road so he headed off.
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| The TMB goes over a Roman Bridge and Sue took a photo of me enjoying a beer and a view at Refuge Nant Borrant |
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There is only one electric outlet in the hall between all the rooms, so I’m glad I have my battery charged up. We're all carrying solar powered batteries that hang off our packs to gather energy during the day.
My phone wasn’t connecting to cell service here, but Colleen’s
did, so she checked the weather and it looks like we will have rain all the way
up, up, up 5.65 miles to the Refuge de la Croix du Bonhomme tomorrow. We will
take what we get (no choice of course!) and make route decisions as we go...
Summary: Refuge de Miage to Refuge de Nant Borrant (France); 6.98 mi/11.23 km;
1535’/468 m up and 1918’/585 m down; 5:31 hrs on trail
