What a fitting way to end our stay in Switzerland. We got up and went down to breakfast which we didn’t include in our room because it was 18 Euros each. The typical breakfast in France was a croissant, a cup of coffee, and maybe a glass of OJ if they are a generous establishment all usually for 7 Euros max. For 18, I would expect an English breakfast and I’m not going to hold my breath.
Usually, I am an honest person to a fault, but today, I looked and acted more like my wife. When we got down to the dining room, they had mistakingly set us a table for breakfast. Since it was only bread, butter, jelly, OJ, and a pot of coffee, I went ahead and ate all while keeping my mouth shut. As soon as we got done eating, we hurried up and packed so we could get our before they figured out we had gotten $3 worth of food for free instead of the $40 they wanted us to pay. We dropped the key off at the counter and skiddaddled.
Karma is a bitch. Within a half hour of leaving the hotel, we lost the trail. We lost it in a big way. There were no markings anywhere. I went by the description in the book which only made things worse. We ended up climbing a few hundred meters in the wrong direction. We eventually found a marker for another trail, but at least we were kind of able to determine where we were. I, of course, remained calm throughout like I normally do. For some reason, Pam kept telling me to calm down or I would have a stroke (she has a vivid imagination–I was completely zen, as long as you look at zen after 20 cups of expresso).
By the time we got back down to the trail, we had wasted over an hour, spent all the energy we had stolen from breakfast (bread just doesn’t go that far energy wise when backpacking), and my feet were completely soaked from walking through all the dew soaked fields. I may have been a little peeved; hard to say in retrospect.
The only good thing we could say about the trail (when we finally found it) was that there were lots of switchbacks, so, even though it was steep, it was long as well. It was also very rocky–ankle breakers. We climbed up to some old ruins near the border and stopped for some lunch. All we had left was peanut butter and tortillas. Pam was in heaven because she has the illusion that peanut butter is healthy, holding steadfast to her belief that sugar is not the #2 ingredient behind peanuts. When I eat peanut butter wraps without any meat, I feel very woozy getting that jolt of sugar in my system without any protein to slow the sugar inrush.
I didn’t care though, I had France in my sights at last. I can honestly say I will never visit Switzerland again once I cross the border back into France. We have plans to drive to Austria after this trail, but I’ll be damned if I’ll drive through Switzerland to get there–looks like we’re making a longer loop south through northern Italy. There is only one way I’ll visit–if someone else pays my way. I would recommend the Tour du Mont Blanc to people, but only from the France/Swiss border to the Italy/Swiss border and staying out of Switzerland.
As we were making the final push to the border, we met a group of mountain bikers coming down. They stopped and asked me a question in French. I apologized and said I only spoke English. They asked again. “Is the trail this bad very far?” I responded with the truth–“Only to Italy. After that it gets nice again. But you get the privilege of paying three times as much for everything in the mean time. Is that France at the top?”
The higher we climbed, the colder it got. The wind was whipping and it really was not very enjoyable. By the time we got to the top, the clouds had broken up quite a bit, but the winds were terrible. I had all my layers on and I was still cold. We just wanted to drop down off the ridge as fast as possible to get out of the wind. True to form, we lost the trail once again. We exited Switzerland on another crappy break.
We could see Chamonix down the valley. Once we got down out of the wind, we were able to consult the map enough to figure out where we were. Of course, we were on the wrong trail, but it is an alternative option through a ski area. With the wind being so bad up above, we decided to head all the way down the valley to Montrachet and then head back up to Tre-la-Champ and get back on the main route.
The trail was not very well maintained through the ski area. We just kept heading down. It was muddy and full of sheep shit–we were definitely back in France. It was very difficult to stay motivated after the last 3 days in that country whose name shall not be spoken. I’ll say Voldemort but will not mention the country that little blond girl with pony tails serving hot chocolate comes from.
There were a lot of people out day hiking on the French side of the frontier. We knew they were French because if we caught up to them heading downhill, they would speed up and not let us pass. It felt good to be in familiar territory once again.
We made it down to the bottom of the valley and could see Chamonix ahead of us. We thought we’d try the local gite and detoured off the trail 1/2 mile to only find that the list the Office of High Mountain gave us was wrong. Even though they are supposed to open until October 15 AND they were inside preparing a large meal AND there were boots in the shoe room, they claimed to be closed. I asked if we could camp out back–they generously refused to let us stay.
We decided to hike on to the next town being Argentiere. It was all road walking along a fairly busy road, but we should be able to pick up the trail there. I don’t know if anyone remembers me complaining about my heels and ankles during the Camino, but all the road walking in Spain did a number on my tendons and I’ve yet to completely recover. Maybe if I put effort into stretching every evening, that might help, but I just don’t have the opportunity or energy left after I set up the tent, cook my wife dinner so she can take a nap after her arduous day of walking (all while carrying a 20+ pound pack), cleaning up the dishes, arranging the tent contents, digging a wind break around the tent so she doesn’t get wind burn if she has to exit the tent during the night, filtering water, and all the other myriad chores I am forced to perform to keep the Mrs happy. I’m not a super man and I’d like to get at least 30 minutes of sleep a night, so the stretching gets put on the back burner. Bottom line, I may have let slip my feet and heels were hurting. Pam saw a hotel up ahead and suggested we get a room for the night and eat at a restaurant so I could have an easy evening. Since I haven’t slept in 7 months, I acquiesced to her wishes.
We got a room without a view of Mont Blanc to save 10 Euros. We actually got a hotel room with our own bathroom with breakfast included (not in the bathroom, but in the dining area) all for 65 Euros (15 less than just a bunk bed cost us in that country whose name must not be spoken). Right across the street was a bar that was run by an Irishman–he even offered to cut our pizza into slices for us–I was in heaven.
