A first venture into the mountains
It's well into Autumn now, and all the trees are scandalously shedding their leaves without any regard for who is watching. Lausanne is often grey these days, but each time the clouds and fog do lift there is snow further down the mountains on the other side of the lake. Time is obviously running out for the hiking season; soon it will be skiing season! Tanya and I decided to make the most of the walking opportunities left for this year by going for a gander in the mountains. We carefully chose a walk that would be not too high, to avoid too much snow, but would not be too low, to afford the feeling of being in alps and hopefully to get a good view. Our chosen destination for our first taste of hiking in Switzerland? The Col de Balme, on the Swiss/French border, between Martigny and Chamonix.
In the forest.
We caught the train and bus to the tiny and thoroughly deserted town of Trient, and set off following the well placed guide markers. The path moved swiftly up through gorgeous pine forest and as we climbed we were soon able to see the Trient Glacier at the top of its valley. The weather was great, the views were spectacular and it was well worth the effort!
You can't be on the wrong track if there are markers!!
Tanya using tree pieces as chamois horns.
When we left the tree line at just under 1900 m, there started to be snow on the ground and we began wondering whether it would even be possible to get to the Col without wading through knee-deep snow (hint: no). In any case we stopped for an early lunch at a gorgeous spot, happy to know we were on target.
Looking towards the Pointe Ronde (L) and the Glacière du Trient (R).
Above about 1900 m there was plenty of snow!
As we left our lunch spot we passed a sign that was a bit strange. It said there were still more than two hours' walking to the Col, which didn't at all fit with our expectations. We passed it off as a typo, a mistake. How strange, we laughed, that in Switzerland, the land of precision, you could find a completely wrong track sign! We continued without giving it a second thought. Having skipped the second thought, however, we gave it a third and a fourth after things continued to get stranger. First, the track markers disappeared and we were just following footprints in the snow. Not a problem, right? The markers were probably just more spaced. Second, we suddenly found ourselves with a beautiful clear view into the next valley, at the other end of which lay France. While generally pleasing, this was a bit unexpected so soon. France wasn't supposed to show her bagette-producing self until the Col! Third, and perhaps most troublingly, the map said there would be a mountain between us and the next valley, and there wasn't.
Intrepid Tanya!
By the time we realised something was amiss, we were wading through knee-deep snow, with steep rock above us. Looking ahead it was clear that the path - sorry, the footprints - we were following would go above some reasonable cliffs, the type of drop above which you start considering how much friction exists between you and the ground. This and the missing mountain persuaded us it was time to look properly at the map.
This is the exact moment we worked out we we'd been on the wrong track for the whole day.
The map quickly confirmed we were on entirely the wrong path! Well, no problem, we thought. All we need to do is trace back and then take the right way to the Col. After walking back a bit, we looked again at the map and discovered - to our embarrassment - that we had in fact been on the wrong path since the start of the day. The path we were on did indeed lead to the right end-point, but by a much longer route. The moment we left Trient, we had already taken our wrong turn that put us in the wrong spot, a bit further down the valley than the faster way to the Col. We were a bit perplexed as to how this can have happened, but it turns out the sign at the start of the walk had two options for which way to go to get to Col de Balme. We read down the signs until we hit the first one and set off without a second thought. So I've learned a valuable lesson - always read signs from the bottom up.
The point the mistake happened, right at the beginning of the day.
After all that, there were actually many bonuses to being on the wrong path, and the only down side was that we didn't make it to the Col itself. We got a much better view of the Swiss alps past Martigny, and a better view of the Glacière du Trient, not to mention the nice view of Lac D'Emosson and towards France. There was little enough snow to let us still climb up to just over 2000 m, and looking later at the path we had wanted, it was clear it would have been too snowy to get so high without skis or snowshoes. And finally, we saw a whole herd of chamois!!
I thought this was a seashell and was mystified until I remembered snails exist.
Little pine cones.
After all this we turned back and walked down to Trient, then decided to walk up the other side of the valley to the Col de Forclaz. All up the statistics were: 1000 metres climbed (positive), one herd of chamois (definitely positive), and one wrong turn (a bit arse). As Meatloaf says, two out of three ain't bad. We had a fantastic day out in the hills, and it was a wonderful taste of the Swiss alps. Pretty great really!
A nice scene in Trient Le Peuty.
This horse has the best fringe I have ever seen.
Looking down to Trient, with its pink church. Behind it is the hill we walked up first.