The tour du Mont Blanc Day 2

You’ll be relieved to hear, as will the man in his tent 1 metre from ours, that Snakes’ cough has finally subsided to a level which she can aquire a decent amout of sleep, and therefore, more importantly, so did I.

We broke Camp in the dark at 5.30am and left by 6. I stepped in some human poo, so it was a staggered and delayed exit. The morning was warm and a swift 315m acsent heated us considerably. We saw some Chamois (we think) and barely any humans for the first two hours.

It turned out the fabled ladder section was not, in fact yesterday’s joke of a fable, but it would be this morning. Around 50 metres of sketchy-ish descending helped by ladders fixed to the mountain, was still, a bit of a let-down fable. This first decsent was 723m of knee debilitating steepness. We both applied our old lady knee braces to our right knee which aids us in ways I don’t understand.

By 8.30am. Hoards of people travelling in the opposite direction were beginning their day, ascending what we’d just descended. We decided to stop at the bottom for breakfast and smugly watch their already exasperated sweaty faces starting out, with us having already completed a 3rd of our day.

We were soon reprimanded for our smugness as, having returned now to the base of the valley we would soon be ascending ourselves and our big fat cheese laden packs another 1011 metres in pretty much the most direct route possible.

This ascent was fairly quickly executed however, and in around 2 hours we were at the top. The day was ‘smeachy ‘ and overcast , (which is what smeachy means) and the route was up the nose of a big fat mountain complex which took us into the next valley with more ‘wow’enducing views. At the top, we crossed into Switzerland. It was windy and cold and we retreated with gleee and pleasure into the toasty warm Col du Balme refuge. It was full of hikers, full of foreign chatter and hub-bub. Yet we managed to get a table and be quickly sat in front of a hot coffee and soup with chunks of bread and cheese. It was 12.30pm.

After this delightful rest, we peeled ourselves out of the refuge with windproofs on. It was cold now. We began our final 800+m descent to La Peuty. Approximately 1,000,000 switchbacks as steep as they possibly could be without being a vertical drop, lay between us and our campsite. My knee was extremely sore at this point. I inhaled some vitamin I and kept going until light rain sped us the final few hundred metres to the head of the road, at the base of the valley at the end of the little village of La Peuty.

There is obviously some kind of arrangement here where hikers, who will all be passing through the town eventually, are allowed to camp on the land at the top of town by the public toilets. Some clever people have set up a restaurant in a yurt to fuel them, and another clever soul has brought in a trailer of showers. As per the signage he arrives at 4 and leaves at 7 to take €2 off hikers and start the clock for their 7 minute shower. He was not unlike the fat controller, though much less jolly and banged on the door of the shower right on the 7 minute mark letting me know my time was up.

We wined in the yurt over a game of cards then feasted on a 5 course meal while the rain thrashed down outside. Full and nicely tired we were asleep by 9.30. And I cleverly left my shoes outside to be cleaned by the rain. Thanks rain.

La Flégère to La Peuty 6.00am to 14.00pm 18.9km 1317m up / 1868m down