To journey on foot from Champex to the small mountain village of Bourg-St-Pierre, is a decent sized walk by anyone's standards. From the start, it was un-clear if we would make it to our final destination, which added an extra element of excitement/trepidation to the day. There's something quite alluring about setting out with an unknown outcome on the horizon, and everyone rose to the challenge perfectly. The weather certainly helped today and up at Lac Champex, the only shame was, that we didn't have more time to stick around longer than for stopping to pick up some baguettes and (literally) a kilo brick of cheese!
Instead, we set off downhill on our quest. The Tour du Mt Blanc continues up the valley to La Fouly - and eventually Italy - but it was too early in the season for this to be passable, due to the amount of snow. My team really wanted to make it over to Italy, so I'd planned an alternative route up towards the slightly lower Col St Grand Bernard. The meadows continued to be stocked full of colour and the sun was shining. It was a brilliant morning to be trekking through the alps...
Slowly but surely, the kilometers ticked by...
After having to do a small detour due to a closed footpath, we stopped for well-earned picnic down by the river, near the village of Liddes. The lads were all excited to be able to use their newly purchased Swiss Army Knives to each whittle away at the cheese brick and construct some monster sandwiches of cheese and tomatoes.
The second detour of the day came shortly after lunch, where the melting snow had caused the river levels to rise over the banks and across the footpath! There was no way of getting across this small, but very fast flowing section!
After a bit of scouting about, Plan B, got us back on track a kilometer or so later and took us past a chalet with loads of edelweiss in the window boxes.
Sensing the end was near, the pace actually picked up as we followed the river up to our final destination, past some big, big Swiss cows...
We managed to keep good time, according to the signposts, which also helped keep us on track. The Col of Gd-St-Bernard was still a long wasy off though...
Then came the final climb of the day, up and out of the valley, towards our home for the night..
It didn't take long to find the hostel - Bourg-St-Pierre is a small village, with some really old chalets, narrow streets and felt like a bit of a ghost town. Thankfully, my reservation (made in French, over the phone, several months ago), had been understood, and we were being expected, despite the sign on the front door that said, 'closed until July 4th'!
The smell of sweaty socks and well-worn boots was overpowering as we all collapsed inside the dormitory. Gasping for breath, we retreated outside to catch the last of the sunlight and after a fruitless search for somewhere to buy an ice cream, Callum and I settled for a quiet coffee from the hostel and drank it on a solitary bench in the street, while the guys freshened up inside. 27km and 850m of ascent today - we were justified in feeling a little weary...
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