Today was rough.
It started out great, with a nice breakfast at the auberge (I had the whole place to myself last night as I was the only person to book! Very strange for a Friday night in the Alps, but I did enjoy the solitude) and plenty of time to collect strength and wait out the morning drizzle.
I left the Inn about 9am and hiked 3km up a road to the beginning of the real trail for the day, which started by a small restaurant at the end of a road called Le Lignon. Along the way I passed a beautiful cascade! It would’ve been a lot more beautiful if it weren’t for the dreary fog, but that’s pretty much the story of this entire day of hiking.
There was about a 1,000m climb from the inn to a plateau with a refuge in it. Near the plateau, the trail was an awesome ridge trail, but again, the fog destroyed any hope of a good view.
At one point, I waited on the edge of the ridge, and I was lucky! The fog kinda cleared long enough for me to snap a picture of the village of Sixt Fer du Cheval, where I started this morning.
The trail came to a plateau and the rain continued to assail in periods of drizzling and slightly less drizzling.
To make matters worse, I had to deal with sharp stomache pains all day, the fallout from the stomache flu I got over a week ago. They would not go away!! Very aggravating. That forced me to take more breaks and overall I felt sluggish because of it. I only made about 11km today, which is well below my average, but there is only about 15km to go into Chamonix tomorrow, where I have booked a bed for 3 nights.
Hopefully all of this will clear up, both the meteorological and physiological funk that has been wrecking this hike the last few days. It’s very discouraging to have to climb so high, doing 3-5,000 feet of ascent, and to have nothing good to show for it.
I’m really positive Perry today if you can’t tell! I just want to feel normal again and have clear skies for photos! This is not asking too much I hope.
Anyways, I hiked to the Anterne refuge where I had a coke and met up with a couple of Brits who had spent the last few years working here in this very valley! They live in Samoens, where I was just a couple days ago, and were out here to explore this area and try out the refuges. I was jealous they they were done at 3pm and already having beers!
There was also an awesome water wheel at the refuge, with a big gear hooked up to spin an alternator, which was powering all the lights and things inside! Very cool display of renewable energy! I’ll have to try to make one of those sometime.
I carry on another 300m up the mountain and find a nice spot to camp by Anterne lake. Man it was nice to get out of the drizzle and cold and into my warm sleeping bag tonight. What a tough day. Tomorrow will be better. Chamonix will make all the hard parts worth it.
