The TMB Diaries Day 3 – Mont Blanc from the Italian side – Rifugio Elena to Rifugio Bonatti

For walkers like us on the Tour de Mont Blanc, the routine was “early to bed and early to rise”. But as we left our bedroom in Rifugio Elena for breakfast at 7.30am, the cleaner was waiting outside our bedroom door with vacuum cleaner at the ready. We’d found the mountain refuges on our trek though France, Switzerland and Italy were a mixed bag and at Rifugio Elena it seemed that they couldn’t wait to see us on our way.

By 8am we were putting on our walking boots outside the door, with the refuge in shadow as the sun started to rise over the jagged peaks of Grand Col Ferret, the pass between Switzerland and Italy, that we’d crossed the afternoon before. The rough path now took us downhill, alongside a stream that was headed to join the river Po and eventually end up in the Adriatic.

In less than an hour we reached the bottom of the valley where there was a car park beside the river and stopped for a coffee at the very pleasant Chalet Val Ferret , a small hotel with restaurant and garden cafe. In the cosy bar I ordered a cappuccino, Julia a cafe con latte and we shared a slice of local torte, filled with sweet fruit puree scattered with pine nuts and a lattice of pastry across the top. A large guided group of Americans came in just as we were leaving for a quick coffee and bathroom stop, before heading in the direction that we’d come, towards Grand Col de Ferret. I didn’t envy them, knowing that they had a long, arduous day ahead of them, while we had a relatively easy one.

The muddy track snaked up behind the Chalet Val Ferret, through rather unattractive scrub, but once we got above the treeline the views opened out on the hillside. It was an easy, open path with fabulous views and I could count four or five glaciers on the opposite side of the valley, hanging below the rocky peaks. By late morning our side of the valley was bathed in sunshine and every so often we played hop scotch across a stream, that carved a channel of grey stone through the grassy green of the hillside.

After walking a couple of hours from Val Ferret, the balcony path gave us a grandstand view from one end of the valley to the other and the peak of Mont Blanc itself was in sight. Whenever we stopped for a break, we could hear the crickets chirping among the scrub and wildflowers, with butterflies flitting between silver thistles and patches of purple flowers.

We passed a mule coming the other way, laden down with baggage in support of a small group of walkers. Each walker had their belongings in a red cylinder bag and they were all being unloaded for a lunchtime stop. We continued a little further before we found our perfect picnic place, eating the local sausage and cheese we’d brought with us, with chili flavoured olives and bread that was getting a bit stale. Our view was of grey mountain peaks and glaciers backed by a blue sky, while from the bottom of the valley we could hear the river rushing and see it snaking along the river bed of shale.

By mid afternoon we rounded a spur and saw villages in the valley stretching out before us, while just beyond a group of old ruined buildings was Rifugio Walter Bonatti. Another half an hour and we were on the sunny terrace of the refuge, joining the walkers who had come up from the valley on a day hike and those who were walking the Tour de Mont Blanc. We left our rucksacks in our room, exchanged our walking boots for slippers provided by the refuge and sat outside to bask in the late afternoon sun, backs against the stone wall with a cold beer in hand. Even though today’s path had been undemanding, it felt like the perfect reward for our day’s walk on the Tour de Mont Blanc.

To be continued ….

More tales from the Tour de Mont Blanc

The Tour de Mont Blanc Diaries Day 1 – Champex Lac to Ferret and a walk in the woods
The Tour de Mont Blanc Diaries Day 2 – Ferret to Rifugio Elena and over the pass to Italy
Last year’s walk on the Tour de Mont Blanc – video diary

www.flickr.com heatheronhertravels’ Tour de Mont Blanc 2012 photoset

Resources for walking the Tour de Mont Blanc

We started this day’s walk from Rifugio Elena in Italy where we had a twin room with en suite bathroom which cost €57.50 per person including dinner and breakfast. The Refuge has room for 130 people in both dormitory accommodation and private en suite twin rooms. There is an e-mail address given on the website but we did not get any response to our e-mail reservation request and learned that it is better to telephone as their e-mail is down in the valley. Staff at Rifugio Elena speak Italian, French and some English. Tel (+39) 0165844688

We ended this day’s walk at Rifugio Walter Bonatti, named after the famous Italian climber, which was one of the nicest refuges we stayed at during the whole of our Tour de Mont Blanc walk and is highly recommended. Due to its popularity, you are advised to book this refuge in advance. The Refuge has a domitory and private twin rooms  and we paid €58 per person per night including dinner and breakfast, for a private twin room with the shared bathroom just across the corridor. The refuge can be booked by e-mail info@rifugiobonatti.it and by telephone (+39) 0165 869055. Follow the Rifugio Bonatti Facebook Group

My jacket and walking trousers were provided by outdoor clothing specialist, Ellis Brigham who have a wide range of mountain clothing and walking gear you might need for a trek on the mountains, which are available both through their website and UK stores.

We used the Cicerone Tour of Mont Blanc guide by Kev Reynolds - we found it to be an excellent guide for both the clockwise and anti-clockwise route with detailed route guide, maps, accommodation information and points of interest along the route.

This article by Heather Cowper is originally published at Heatheronhertravels.com - Read more travel articles at Travel Blog Home

You’ll also find our sister blog with tips on how to build a successful travel blog at My Blogging Journey

 Don’t miss out – subscribe to Heather on her travels

The Tour de Mont Blanc Diaries Day 2 – Ferret to Rifugio Elena and over the pass to Italy

The first day of our walk on the Tour de Mont Blanc had taken us through Alpine meadows and pretty hamlets, but we hoped that today would take us up into wilder terrain and over the high mountain pass into Italy. Over breakfast at Hotel Col de Fenetre, we chatted to a group of four American ladies who were doing a self guided tour on the Tour de Mont Blanc. Their walk was part of a pre-arranged holiday package and we secretly congratulated ourselves that we had arranged it all ourselves and spared the expense. The hamlet of Ferret was shrouded in mist but Madame at the hotel assured us that it would would clear and that it was forecast fine weather for the rest of the week. “Don’t worry” she said, “Il fait beau en haut” – the weather’s fine higher up.

As we prepared to leave the hotel, a couple were outside, saddling up their mule to carry their bags. I stopped for a chat about Quartz the mule and had my photo taken with him, rather wishing that he could be carrying my bags too. I just had time to take a look at the small chapel near the hotel; the motif above the door said “Quiconque aime Marie ne lui refuera pas un Ave Maria en passant devant cette Chapelle”  - “Whoever loves Mary, will not refuse her an Ave Maria as they pass before this chapel”. We retraced our steps back to the river that we crossed the day before, then made a few false starts before we picked up the TMB trail again and were confident we were on the right track.

We climbed a muddy path, gaining height and just as we had been assured the mist cleared and the sun came out. After an hour of steady walking, we could spot the toytown houses of the hamlet of Ferret below us. We were now high enough to get a clear view down the valley with the stony river and the road snaking along the bottom of the valley, ending just beyond Ferret with tracks to a few isolated farmsteads. From the valley bottom, the sounds of civilisation drifted upwards, the rushing of the river and the cars driving along the road. The distant sound of cowbells alerted us to the herd of cows in the valley, moving in a single file along the road, like a line of black ants trailing along a silver path. ”It doesn’t look like we’ve come very far” said Julia.

A little higher at the concrete hut at the combe of Les Creuses we paused for some photos with a fantastic view down the valley. Although we were high above the valley and well away from the road, the phone signal was good and i one of those wierd “Miles from anywhere” moments, my friend Julia took the opportunity to ring and book her hotel in Edinburgh for a business trip on her return.

Next the walk took us to the Refuge at La Peule, at 2071M,  a long low building marked with a couple of yurts at one end. With the Swiss flag flying from a pole, I thought this might mark the border into Italy, but later realised that this was much further along the walk. The terrace in front of the Refuge that was probably once a cowshed, was full of pretty tubs of geraniums and flowers planted in walking boots. Walkers were sitting under shady umbrellas eating raclette or other variations of toasted cheese and we also unloaded our rucksacks and sat down at this welcome stop for a glass of apple juice “Pomme de Maison”. After our refreshment, we continued up the path above the Refuge and sat on the hillside to eat the lunch of bread, cheese and salami that we had in our rucksacks, with a steady stream of walkers passing by.

Here the scenery was more wild, with scrub dotted with pretty yellow and purple wildflowers and star flowers that I thought might be edelwiess but turned out to just be thistles! The path now took us on a steady climb up towards the highest point of our trek, the Grand Col Ferret at 2537M. On the opposite side of the valley, the mountains were becomming more jagged, their grey rock faces covered with shale and lower down with rivulets of snow.

I had been walking in shorts and a vest in brilliant sunshine and wondered why the walkers coming down from the Col were dressed as if for ski-ing with jackets zipped and hoods up. Now the temperature started to drop noticeably and I also put on my fleece and jacket, passing pockets of snow just below the Col that hadn’t melted through the summer. The Grand Col Ferret marks the border between Switzerland and Italy, and the streams from these slopes feed the River Po that flows into the Adriatic on the Italian side and the Rhine on the Swiss side.

Reaching the trig point on the summit of the Grand Col Ferret, I walked along the ridge, now well wrapped up as the wind was biting and cold. Kestrels circled above on the upstream and the two glaciers of Pre de Bar and Triolot hung before us, feeling close enough to touch. A few paces below the summit it was more sheltered and I found Julia laid down in the sunshine to meditate on the glorious scenery, while I showed my appreciation of the landscape by taking a few more photos.

Further down near the trig point, I was intrigued by the sight of a man taking photos of a large orange inflateable plastic elephant, so I went down to investigate. He was explaining to crowd of interested walkers, that it was part of an artistic Hannibal project where the elephant travels to various different mountains and beauty spots around Europe to be photographed. You can find out more about Thomas Falk and his Hannibal project at tfkunstkonzept.wordpress.com. After having had my photo taken with the orange elephant, I took a few of Thomas and his little dog for his album.

On the Italian side of the Col we could see Rifugio Elena in the valley below us, although experience told us that while it looked just a stone’s throw away, it would take another hour or two to walk down to the refuge. The path down the mountain was braided and in places rope mesh had been placed over the muddy tracks to prevent erosion.

Finally in the late afternoon we reached the terrace of Rifugio Elena and immediately realised that we were in Italy switching our Bonjours to Buongiornos and our Mercis to Pregos and Grazies.

We were shown to our en suite twin room at the end of the corridor, which although simply furnished, felt like luxury after a long and sweaty walk. We had a beer and by 7 o’clock were sitting down to dinner with two jolly Dutch couples who recounted to us, in perfect English, their tales of walking through deep snow on other parts of the Tour de Mont Blanc. The Italian refuges have a reputation for serving better food than the French ones and here the menu had turned Italian with a plate of pasta to start, followed by pork and a small slice of polenta and ratatouille. Desert was a big bowl of green apples followed by slices of jam tart.

By 9pm we realised that it was time for bed when the lady from the refuge started stacking the stools up on our table, and once she had started hoovering around us we took the hint and turned in for the evening. We needed to be ready for an early start the next morning when we would continue to Refuge Bonnati. Stay tuned for the next installment of my Tour de Mont Blanc diary.

To be continued ……

More tales from the Tour de Mont Blanc

The Tour de Mont Blanc Diaries Day 1 – Champex Lac to Ferret and a walk in the woods
The Mountain clothing you’ll need for treking the Tour de Mont Blanc
A tale of Two Refuges – on the Tour de Mont Blanc

Resources for walking the Tour de Mont Blanc

At Ferret, Switerland we stayed at Hotel Col de Fenetre. The twin room with en suite bathroom cost 95 CHF per person including dinner and breakfast. The hotel does not have a website but reservations can be made by e-mailing bertrandmurisier@bluewin.ch Tel. 027 783 1188

We walked to Rifugio Elena in Italy where we had a twin room with en suite bathroom which cost €57.50 per person including dinner and breakfast. The Refuge has room for 130 people in both dormitory accommodation and private en suite twin rooms. There is an e-mail address given on the website but we did not get any response to our e-mail reservation request. We learned later that there is no e-mail at the Refuge itself, so they do not monitor e-mail, therefore you will need to telephone them for a reservation either before your trip or ask one of the previous refuges to do so for you once you arrive on the TMB. Staff at Rifugio Elena speak Italian, French and some English. Tel (+39) 0165844688

For women’s mountain clothing I used mountain sports specialist, Ellis Brigham who have a wide range of waterproof jackets, trousers and other walking gear you might need for a trek on the mountains, which are available both through their website and UK stores.

We used the Cicerone Tour of Mont Blanc guide by Kev Reynolds - we found it to be an excellent guide for both the clockwise and anti-clockwise route with detailed route guide, maps, accommodation information and points of interest along the route.

www.flickr.com heatheronhertravels’ Tour de Mont Blanc 2012 photoset

This article is originally published at Heatheronhertravels.com - Read more travel articles at Travel Blog Home

You’ll also find our sister blog with tips on how to build a successful travel blog at My Blogging Journey

 Don’t miss out – subscribe to Heather on her travels

The Tour de Mont Blanc Diaries Day 1 – Champex Lac to Ferret and a walk in the woods

Our train from Geneva airport skirted around Lake Lausanne heading for Martigny on a journey that would take us back to Champex Lac, where we had ended our Tour de Mont Blanc walk last year. There’ s a bit of history here, as my friend Julia and I had decided to hike this Alpine trail in stages of a few days at a time and we were back for a third year of what will probably be a four year journey for us both. An elderly man in the seat across the aisle beckoned to me confidentially and spoke first in German, then in English when I looked blank. “What are the three fastest ways to spread news? he asked, looking pleased at his riddle. The answer ; “Telegram, Telephone, Tell a woman”. Not quite knowing what to make of the joke, I smiled politely and gazed out of the window, as the medieval castle at Montreux sped by. Lake Lausaune was so big that we could only just make out the far shore and a haze hung over the water in the warm sunshine.

The journey from Martigny

At Martigny we changed to the local line on the cheerful, red St Bernard Express with the dog on the side that was once used to rescue people in the mountains, although nowadays the helicopter is more in demand. A quick change at Sembrancher which I almost missed, in my desire to take just one more photo, and our train journey ended at Orsieres where we picked up our bus connection to take us up the winding hairpin bends to Champex Lac. The bus was full of primary school children heading home, who were creating a riot all around us, until a stern French aunty told them to pipe down. A long day of travel and we were back where we ended last year, pulling off our boots and putting on our Crocs at the Gite Bon Abri. Not much had changed in the year we’d been away; we had the same 6 bed bunk room to ourselves with red flanellette sheets and duvets and the same supper that started with an aperitif of sweet wine and some home-made cheese straws. The mules were grazing outside, ready for the next day when they might be carrying someone’s baggage up the mountain. The forecast was good and we were all set fair for our few days walking on the Tour de Mont Blanc.

Setting off from Champex Lac

Our first day was planned to be our longest, although the terrain was gentle with not too many steep climbs in altitude. Julia had experienced serious problems with accute mountain sickness (AMS) during our walk the year before, and she had prepared herself to avoid it this year with a large water pouch which she could sip through a tube and some medication (Diamox). Our little joke was that she’d told all her friends that she was on Viagra, as I’d heard somewhere that they are in the same family of drugs and both work by increasing the blood supply!

As we came down the hill at 8.30 towards the lake, all the shops were shut but the fishermen were lined up along the bank. Being conscious of the etiquette of the Tour de Mont Blanc, I must have said about ten Bonjours as I passed them one by one along the path by the lake. I even spotted a few of those naughty children who were causing a riot in the bus out fishing with their dads. We nearly got lost before we had even started, but a little way down the road we picked up the yellow and black diamond TMB signs, and turned into the woods. The walk was cool and shady and the carved wooden sculptures that we’d spotted outside Gite Bon Abri and also on the lake continued with a menagerie of carved wooden animals and other sculptures along the route.

The Sentier des Champignons

A forest sign told us that we were on the “Sentier des Champignons” but although we saw a wooden mushroom sculpture, it was too early for the autumn crop of real champignons. At a bend in the path, the clanging of cow bells warned us that there was a dairy farm in the building below the path, but thankfully no cows blocking the way as we had experienced last year. As the forest cleared, we walked down to the road at the village of Issert, which was full of pretty old houses and took some photos on the bridge that crossed the rushing mountain river. The path skirted along the open meadow and through the small hamlet of Les Arlaches where workmen were repairing the attractive old wooden barns and the houses were in various states of repair. Through gaps in the houses we could glimpse some fertile vegetable patches with orange home grown pumpkins and a large cross marked the end of the village.

A walk through the Alpine meadow

The path continued through an Alpine meadow and next we reached the somewhat larger village of Praz de Fort where we crossed the river again and stopped to have an early lunch on a fallen log overlooking the river, keeping a safe distance from a row of multicoloured bee hives. It was only 11.30 and although we had been walking three hours, the map showed us that we had only walked around a third of our walk for the day, so we couldn’t afford to linger too long. We nearly got lost again among the outskirts of the village where a lot of new houses seemed to have been built and then passed through the forest along a causeway created by moraine left by the retreating Glacier de Saleina, with the light dappling through the pines.

A view of the glaciers at La Fouly

An hour or so later, we approached La Fouly, a larger village that looked as if it saw a lot of visitors in both summer and winter, judging by the numerous cafes, equipment shops and information centre. Had we been looking for a more lively location for our night’s stop this would probably have been it. The village has wonderful views of the hanging glaciers and we settled gratefully into the sunny outdoor terrace of the Auberge des Glacier for a reviving Orangina, surrounded by lean climbing types with wraparound sunglasses. The cafe was full of colour, with orange striped deck chairs set on green astroturf, electric blue sun umbrellas and window boxes full of pink geraniums framing the glacier in the bowl of the mountains.

Eventually we prised ourselves from our deck chairs and mustered the energy to walk the final hour up the valley to Ferret, the last village before the road ran out. We had booked a room at Hotel Col de Fenetre, the only place in town, where we were thrilled by our en suite twin room, a real step up from some of the dorms where we had slept in previous years. The day ended with a cold beer, a meal of pork in mustard sauce, finished by a slice of ice-cream that had a red Swiss flag embedded in it – what a novelty. Today had been long but easy terrain through Alpine meadows and pretty villages. Tomorrow, we would get away from the road and up into the real mountains.

To be continued…..

More Tour de Mont Blanc adventures from last year

Walking on the Tour de Mont Blanc – Podcast
My Tour de Mont Blanc diary Day 2 – Col de Balme to Champex
My second year on the Tour de Mont Blanc – video diary 2011

 

Resources for the Tour de Mont Blanc

We took the train from the station at Geneva Airport buying a combined ticket that covered all the changes and the integrated bus service to Champex Lac. The route was via Martigny where we changed to the St Bernard Express to Orsieres with a brief change at Sembrancher. At Orsieres we waited half an hour for the bus to Champex Lac. The whole journey took around 3 hrs 30 mins and cost 59 CHF one way.

On the first night we stayed at Gite Bon Abri at Champex-de’en-Haut, which we highly recommend, with private rooms and dorm rooms. The cost was around CHFR 76 per person including dinner and breakfast in a 6 bed dorm room and the Gite may be booked in advance by e-mail. The second night we stayed at Hotel Col de Fenetre at Ferret. The twin room with en suite bathroom cost 95 CHF per person including dinner and breakfast. The hotel does not have a website but reservations can be made by e-mailing bertrandmurisier@bluewin.ch Tel. 027 783 1188

For mountain clothing I recommend mountain sports specialist, Ellis Brigham who have a wide range of waterproof jackets, trousers and other walking gear you might need for a trek on the mountains, which are available both through their website and UK stores.

We used the Cicerone Tour of Mont Blanc guide by Kev Reynolds - we found it to be an excellent guide for both the clockwise and anti-clockwise route with detailed route guide, maps, accommodation information and points of interest along the route.

www.flickr.com heatheronhertravels’ Tour de Mont Blanc 2012 photoset

This article by Heather Cowper is originally published at Heatheronhertravels.com – Read more travel articles at Travel Blog Home

You’ll also find our sister blog with tips on how to build a successful travel blog at My Blogging Journey

Don’t miss out – subscribe to Heather on her travels

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