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| 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!
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.
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!
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| Notre Dame de la Gorge as our background. |
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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!
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| Finally, the snow ended on our way down to Les Chapieux. |
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!!!
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