Tour du Mont Blanc Day 3

We awoke in the sea of tents surrounding us, quietly packed up and escaped with barely anyone noticing.

We chugged up the hill and enjoyed a stonking 2 hours of trail to ourselves. A mix of steep, and heanously steep terrain contouring us around the midriff of Le Génépi. We enjoyed the wiff of pine forest and penetrating sun through the trees, desolate farms with only the sound of cow bells tinkling to pursuade of signs of life.

We breakfasted in a beautiful meadow and hung the sodden tent to dry. With only 11km left on the day, we took our time. Some American boys (adult men) ran past us up a steep incline having a full-on conversation. Their little udder shaped packs sat on their back and they carried nothing more than a set of poles. The chaps themeslevs probably weighed no more than my lunch but nonetheless it was bloody impressive watching them razz up the hill. The ‘Ultimate Tour du Mont Blanc’ begins in a few days and many a small, slight individual can be seen rushing about with no more than a bum-bag for support.

We continued up to our summit of the day and then down to the Bovine cafe. Another farm situated in the middle of nowhere, taking advantage of the thousands of clientèle passing each day through summer by serving them all manner of good things to eat and drink; in the extremely neat and well kept shack on the side of the hill. We encountered the cleanest toilet of the whole trail here and made good use of it. We sat in the quiet, with pie and coffee overlooking the valley below with, initially only the sound of cow bells clinking down the hill as they ran down for breakfast. Before long 4 massive parties of hikers decended on the cafe and invaded everyone’s personal space taking pictures of every last thing they saw in and around the cafe while talking really loudly about it.

We snuck off quickly and quietly descending rapidly down a ridiculous hill untill my knees insisted they required more vitamin I. A difficult 9km on and we were back to my favourite hiking: uphill. We lunched on cheese and crackers in the woods before the last few kilometres through utterly beautiful Swiss meadows with the best wood stacks you’ve ever seen, and a little trail cat who we met in the woods and who followed us for a short distance before his catchment area ended. Uphill now to the small town of Champex.

Here, everything will cost you enough make you wince. Camping was CHF 37, and the Swiss franc is close to the Euro so it was an expensive night in our tent, which is what happens when wild camping is made illegal. But there was laundry, electricity and showers to, not quite make up for the price.

We walked the short distance into town to by a few more snack supplies and managed to get coin change so Snakes could do laundry. Her favourite town chore. We booked a table in a restaurant who were clearly sick of smelly hiker trash ruining their attempt at swank, but they let us book the table nonetheless. We returned for showers and cards while clothes were washed electricly.

Back to the restaurant for a £20 pizza with frozen vegetables on top and the cheapest wine which was see-through and reminiscent of blackcurrant. Lovely.

We arrived back to camp to find the occupants of the tent (less than 1 metre from us) asleep, snoring and with their door open. Which made Snakes very uncomfortable.