Tour du Mont Blanc Day 1

After a horrific nights sleep (Snakes has a consistent covid cough and is therefore awake most of the night and so therefore am I) it turned out Snakes’ alarm won’t go off if her phone is off (like I assured her it would). Which is fortunate as she set it for 5am. We were awake though at 5.45 and hiking by 6.27.

The trail continued upright on its relentless vertical path for almost 2 hours before we reached the top. I had ingested nothing and was feeling most hungry when we arrived at the tiny Refuge de Bellachat. A few groups of hikers were just readying themselves for the day ahead when Snakes and I smugly sat down, two hours into ours. We ordered coffee and made cereal (we’re both carrying 700g of cereal and a quantity of dried milk which could get us both arrested, quite why we’re both carrying so much I know not).

After a short pause here we we’re heading off back to the trail when a helicopter appeared overhead to drop a package of goods to the tiny refuge. Quite a sight, which really awoke the excited eleven year old boy in Snake Legs. We continued up to refuge Brevant where water is sold at €3.50 for 500ml. No natural sources were flowing and only residents of the refuges were entitled to their potable free water. Not fair. Very expensive. Snakes kept exclaiming (throughout the day) it was her human right to drink water.

The trail dropped down from here, where desert-like rock formations made us reminiscent of previous hikes. We decsended the infamous ‘ladders’, which I’d heard mentioned numerous times due to the sheer exposure and lofty overhanging situation, inducing fear and many sleepless nights in many hikers. This, we discovered, is not so. So it looks like the ultimate crux of this walk may have been completed without incident.

A rocky descent lead us down to another refuge, where water was now €4.00. Luckily we had enough and moved on to a shady spot for lunch bap #2.

Though we were passed by a fair few people, it was nowhere near as rammed as I’d expected and we, moving in the less popular direction, only overtook a handful of folk moving the same way. Some of those folk nigh-on refused to let us pass, and rather than politely pull off to one side to let us pass, maintained an entire trail takeover while bimbling at a snails pace downhill. Rude.

After lunch we had an undulating STUNNING few kilometres to our destination at refuge de la Flégère, which we later discovered we couldn’t have been pronouncing more wrong. It’s situated across the valley but directly opposite Mont Blanc. We’d booked dinner and camping was free at the artificial lake below the refuge. I didn’t appreciate the below bit, but nice that it was free. We beered inside to get out of the sun for a bit. I asked the refuge staff if we could swim in the lake and in unison one said ‘no’ while the other said ‘yes’. We took the answer we liked most and dived into the lake fully clothed and had a much needed rinse. The water was crystal clear. A nearby collie entertained himself by making waves with his paws while trying to eat the waves with his mouth. Cute.

The lake was ringed by a roped fence, there was enough room for tents all the way around the inner ring. We set up camp on the edge of the lake and dried our clothes off on the fence while we did so.

Back to the refuge to hand wash my pants, write this little entry, play cards, drink wine and watch from afar as one man decided to set up his tent a single metre away from ours, turning down the alternative option of literally anywhere else. We sat with a group of 3 Americans at dinner and feasted on a 4 course meal of salad, tartiflette, cheese board and chocolate mouse, with additional bread which, on any other day would be problematically stale, but today, as hungry as I was, it was practically fresh.

Parc de Merlet to La Flégère 6.00am to 13.00pm 12km – 1123m up and 834 down