TMB - Day 2 (Les Contamines to Le Chapieux)

Beginning of Day 2 at the town of Les Contamines 

The good news is Delta finally found my bag and they delivered it to our hotel the night before. So on Day 2, I was wearing my own clothes and the bag that I used while training for this trek. The bad news is there were still a lot of snow at Col Du Bonhomme and Col de la Croix du Bonhomme. I even overheard a couple in our hotel who decided to bypass this stage as they did not bring crampons and ice ax.

The first three hours of the trek is quite deceiving. We started by walking along a river for about an hour (no elevation) until we reach a baroque church called Notre Dame de la Gorge. The church is tiny but very solemn inside so we stopped by for a few minutes to pray for a safe journey. Looking back, we really needed it!

Notre Dame de la Gorge as our background.

From the church, it was an uphill climb through a heavily wooded area via Chemin Romain (old Roman road). I was sweating so hard at this point as I am carrying over 20 pounds but this is really really easy compared to the latter half of the day. After we emerged from the woods, it was views galore! The trail passes through farms and pastures and great mountain views ahead. Again, we saw so much cows with bells around their neck. The bells create a very calming sound (at least for us) that we stopped by so many times to enjoy our surroundings and the magnificent view.

After a couple of hours of easy and enjoyable hiking, the snow emerged and it went on and on for hours! What should have been an 8 hour hike in the middle of summer took us over 10 hours to complete because of kilometers of snow in the high passes. We started the hike early in the season because we wanted to avoid the summer crowd. Prior to this trek, we've never done alpine hiking with considerable amount of snow so walking along the snowy ridges was nerve wracking. 

After over 10 hours of hiking, we reached the small town of Les Chapieux and camped for free in a designated camping area right across Refuge de la Nova. There is a toilet in the camp but we wanted to take a hot shower so we paid 8 euros (for both of us) at Refuge de la Nova to get one. We also had dinner there of pasta and French omelette which were really good!    

Finally, the snow ended on our way down to Les Chapieux.

The good thing about training hard for this trek was I got to build my strength and stamina so I was able to enjoy the hike more even if it was tough and sometimes scary. I am glad I religiously trained for this because I got to appreciate the amazing views on the high passes. It may have been difficult but I did it with just crampons and no ice ax! 

DAY 2 SUMMARY

Les Contamines to Les Chapieux 

Distance: about 17 KM (10.5 miles)

Time: over 10 hours (with rest stops)

Highest Elevation: 2542 m (~8340 feet)

Rating: Difficult!!!

TMB - Day 1 (Les Houches to Les Contamines)

Start of Day 1

We started late on Day 1 (10:30 AM) because Delta Airlines lost my luggage. I had to buy some new stuffs prior to the hike so it's a good thing our hotel (Hotel Chris-tal) is near some sports stores. And since we started late, we took the cable car from Les Houches to Col De Voza. The cable car station is about 15 minutes from our hotel. According to our guidebook, the trek from Les Houches to Col De Voza is a "steep and punishing ascent of 600 meters". Honestly, I am glad we took the cable car because Day 2 and Day 3 were, by far, steeper and more punishing! But more on that on my next post.

From Col De Voza, the route we took is via Bionnassay which is the easier of the two possibilities. We passed through a forest, walked along a dam, crossed a raging river, walked along many farmlands and saw many cows with bells around their neck.  Although it was a bit scary at first to be close to these huge animals, the sound the bells around their neck create was very relaxing and we soon forgot  our fear.

The beautiful wild flowers of the Alps!

One of the many water sources where you can wash your hand and get some water to drink. We never paid for bottled water during the trek. The free water here is better than Evian--straight from the source!

Still under the tree line. I did not like these parts of the trek -- good thing there were not many of them.

This was really cool! We passed by a dilapidated house which happens to be the birthplace of the astronomer who discovered Neptune (based on my limited French)!

River crossing -- one of the many that we did during the trek.

One of the many raging rivers we saw during the trek.

Thank God there was a bridge!

Day 1 - Completed! At the town of Les Contamines, looking for our hotel.

After 4.5 hours of hiking, we reached the town of Les Contamines. I like this than Les Houches because of the views from the town and our hotel, and the many stores that you can explore after the trek. Since we started early and completed the trek early, we had time to check-in our hotel (Hotel Christiana), take a hot soak in the tub and relax for a bit before checking out the town. 

For the hotel, we paid about $93 for our very nice room and additional $22 for a breakfast for two. The staff were very nice and one of them even stayed with me in the lobby until 10 PM while I wait for my lost bag to be delivered. I am glad we did not camp on Day 1 as I am not sure if my bag will ever reach me if we did! We also found a good pizza stand just right across our hotel. The prices, as you can see from the picture below, is not too bad. We bought the combo for dinner and it was really really good! 

We ate the pizza in our hotel veranda with a great mountain view. 

DAY 1 SUMMARY

Les Houches to Les Contamines 

Distance: about 10 KM (6.2 miles)

Time: 4.5 hours (with rest stops)

Highest Elevation: 1653 m (5423 feet)

Rating: EASY PEASY! :)