There are two truths to what happened to us and why we are still in Argentiere today–we will leave it up to the reader to choose the version he/she prefers to be true and which sounds more truthful.
Version 1:
While having pizza and beer for dinner last evening, we logged into the internet to check the weather for the next few days since it was pretty miserable and cold already. It started misting right after we got into our room and the clouds rolled in. The forecast for the next few days looked pretty grim–rain and clouds with low visibility. It is October and we have to expect some bad weather. We decided that if it was, in fact, raining in the morning, we would call it a trip and end the Tour du Mont Blanc here and skip the last 13 miles. We can see Chamonix down the valley from where we are so it seems pointless to climb back up the ridge opposite of Mont Blanc to not be able to see the mountain. The last two days are normally the most spectacular views of the mountain, but if it’s cloudy, why bother. We’ve already hike over 1400 miles.
Version 2:
We started praying for the rain to continue tomorrow so we would have an excuse to quit. After the last 3 days of hiking in the nameless country we just left, we were broken. For the first time this entire 6 months, we both can honestly say we are not having any fun and want to quit hiking this trail (not quit hiking, but move on to a different activity for a while and allow our bodies some recovery time). When we woke up in the morning, our prayers had not been answered–there were just a few clouds in the sky. We took our time with breakfast and extended our stay for another 2 nights. By the time we found a cash machine and figured out where and when to catch buses, the clouds had rolled in and it was starting to rain. We started to feel better since the weather justified our premature ejection from the trail.
Normally, I’d say we didn’t come to Europe to hike most of the Tour du Mont Blanc, but, apparently that’s not the case this time. We have hiked the Pembrokeshire Coastal Path in Wales and didn’t skip an inch. We hiked the Camino Francais starting in St Jean Pied de Port and actually took some longer detours to hike well in excess of the 500 miles our Compostela says we hiked, plus, we hiked to Muxia and Fistere. We hiked the entire GR10 in France (something the majority of the people in the world are smart enough to not do in a single pass). AND, we came to France to hike MOST of the Tour du Mont Blanc. We hiked over 90 miles of the trail skipping the last 12 miles because of the weather (after it finally decided to cooperate and give us an excuse to quit). All together, we have hiked in excess of 1450 miles and we are still planning on hiking a few more trails in England before we return to the USA in December.
The goal we set for ourselves this year was to hike at least 1600 miles to prove that we are mentally unbalanced enough to begin the Triple Crown next year. We have proven to ourselves that long distance hiking is mostly a mental challenge. We have endured the physical hardships and have proven we are mental. For now, we sightsee. Come November, we will be hiking in England. We hope you will continue to follow us then. Ba bye for now.
