Haute Route 2013-Day 3-Champex to La Chable-Easy Day

Haute Route Hiking Stats-Day 3

We enjoyed a nice breakfast at the Hotel du Glacier first thing in the morning, then returned back to the room to finish drying out our laundry. We had direct sunlight on our balcony and it was a bright blue sky day. Our clothes dried out in no time. We got packed up and were out of the hotel by around 10:30 or so. Our route card indicated today’s hike was only around 13k(8 mi), so it should be a relatively easy day. We were in no big hurry to get hiking so we enjoyed the town a bit longer. We had to stop off at the Post Office to ship Denise’s hiking shoes back home as well as some extra clothing to lighten up the packs a bit.

Denise with Box of Shoes in hand headed to La Poste

The post office trip was a bit stressful. The PO was in the town grocery store and the workers didn’t speak any English at all. They ended up making our package priority instead of Economy which cost us another 12 CHF($12). We tried to get them to change it, but they said it was impossible(I think?). The guy was getting impatient and rude with us, so I said lets just let it go. So the shoes along with a few other unnecessary items were out of our packs and head back to the states. I think after a week of carrying those pounds we will think it may have been worth the extra cost.

We headed along the lake and made a slight left out of town. We then hit a dead end which was the start of the trail. The first mile or so was a somewhat annoying steep downhill, gravel section which eventually leveled out and passed through some farmland. We passed through the quaint little village  of Soulalex after about 2 miles which was a bit more interesting than the previous scenery.

We then headed through some more farmland and downhills until crossing some railroad tracks before the town of Sembrancher. It was getting close to lunch so we figured we would hit a café in town. We searched around the old cobble streets for somewhere to eat. There were a couple bars, but they really didn’t look like they had much in the way of food. We walked out of town a bit towards the highway and found an Italian place. It reminded me of one of the typical pizza shops you would see back home in the states, so not a lot of local culture here. I was hungry and didn’t really care at this point. Of course we had even more pizza. There were three other guys eating there with pretty large packs by there table. They were also hiking the Haute Route which we knew since they had the ever-popular “blue book” by Kev Reynolds that outlines the route. The one guy seemed to speak fairly good English, but they none of them spoke French either as their native tongue, so it we weren’t sure exactly where they were from.

We seemed to have finally left the Tour de Mont Blanc crowds behind after leaving Champex. There were definitely less people hiking on the trails we were on today. Most of the people we did see had large packs, which means they were also self-supported like us. Most of the people we had seen in Trient had support vans taking most of their luggage to their next destination.

After leaving the Italian place, we went back to the town square to pick up the route again. We ran into a British couple  while trying to pickup the trail again. They seemed to be having trouble finding it as well. The girl asked if we spoke English and seemed relieved when I said “yes”. They were also doing the Haute Route but were camping. This explained the extremely large backpacks they had. I thought mine was big, but theirs were almost double the size of ours. They were looking for a campground nearby that they were to stay for the night and so we started walking together. We began chatting a bit and all got lost together since we more involved in conversation than in directions. I then tried to take off ahead a bit but could not find the bridge we were looking for nor their campground. I eventually figured they were to go one way and they another. We said goodbye for now and that we would most-likely see each other again. And we would.

I eventually found the bridge we were looking for and then we headed down an through some open fields. The bright sunlight and post lunch “funk” really took its toll on us now. Eventually we took a road up a hill in the shade which helped. The rest of the route followed some very chalky dirt roads through a quarry and up into La Chable.  It was pretty boring and my feet were getting kind of achy. It is not that it was that hard, it was just either the surface we were walking or just from being on my feet all day. I think the first couple days of a trip like this are the roughest since your body is getting used to being on your feet all day. Sitting in a cubicle all day just doesn’t do much to get you ready for this.

Coming into La Chable

We eventually got to town and crossed the river into the new part of town called Villette. Our hotel, Hotel Gietroz, was directly across the bridge. We checked in and settled into the room.  Denise did some more laundry then we showered up and headed out for some dinner. Denise had seen the British couple we met in Sembrancher walking across the bridge from La Chable back into Villette. Either they never found their campground or they just bagged it and took the bus into La Chable.

I found a place to eat right next door, called Les Ruinettes, which sounded good. We had a few drinks and then had some dinner. They had a fixed menu of Popperdon, yoghurt soup and Lamb Curry. It was really good. I have pretty much thrown the vegan/vegetarian thing out the window on this trip. Oh well, only a few weeks. Everything here is all about diary and bread. With the language barrier it is just easier to suck it up and eat it. Les Ruinettes was actually run by a Brit, so it was much easier to order. For desert, I had some chocolate mouse tart-like thing with strawberries and whipped cream. The whole meal was quite amazing.

We had heard from one of Denises’ friends who was hiking the same route about a week ahead of us. She had said that the erosion on the Europaweg portion of the hike was pretty bad. The Europaweg is the last couple sections of trail right before Zermatt and it supposed to be pretty gnarly with rockslides. We decided to see if we could insert a night at another hut, Cabane de Dix, between Cabane Perflueri and Arolla and ditch the last night at the Europahut which already had a disruption with an abbreviated hike to Zermatt. We will have wait to see if that is doable from Alpine Exploratory.

The day ended up being a couple miles longer than what the route card had said. This was probably due to searching for a place to eat and getting a little lost in Sembrancher. Fortunately, the our hiking time was dead-on at 4:30 to what the route card said. Tomorrow we hike up to Cabane du Mont Fort, which is our first real mountain hut. Should be a tough hike, but at least it is uphill. Looking forward to it!