When I was young and visiting my grandparent’s farm in Denmark, there was a nasty plant in the area. It didn’t look like much, but if your skin touched it, burning pain. I had forgotten about it until today. Because today I discovered that same plant lives in France. So if you go off the beaten path on the TMB while wearing shorts, you may encounter some.
We got up early for our first day of trekking, but as we are wont to do, we didn’t get off as early as we would have liked. It didn’t look promising when I woke up; it was so cloudy/foggy that I couldn’t tell if we were in the mountains. We missed the train we wanted, so had to wait an hour for the next one, but spent a pleasant while by a small lake, where my friend went wading. Then we got the train to Les Houches, spent far too long trying to find a grocery store to get a lunch for later, then took the cable car to Bellevue.
The hike would have been more impressive if we could see anything. Occasionally the clouds would part and we would see the hint of something awesome. But we never got the postcard pictures. That said, we were far more likely to look at the view, because it was always changing. The clouds would accentuate different parts of the scenery.
We crossed a suspension bridge (1760m), climbed up to the Col de Tricot (2120m), then down to Miage (1570m) where I encountered hostile plants and a dead cow. Then up to Le Truc (1720m) where we came upon the Auberge du Truc where we are spending the night.
It is rustic here. There are no power outlets that are accessible. No showers. Two toilets without lights. A dorm style sleeping arrangements that I think I’m sharing with about 20 others. We did borrow buckets and used them to soak our feet in cold water, which made us look ridiculous, but cold water heals a lot of injuries. And although my quads were feeling better this morning, all the down part to Miage has made them, flare up again.
Dinner was nice; carrot soup, macaroni, an omelette, some of the FRESH cheese they make here, and a Creme Brûlée. It also had a nice fireplace which really helped warm me up. It is cold in the mountains. I’m typing this while sitting next to it,
We changed plans for tomorrow. It seems obvious we won’t get to Les Mottets, so I hopefully moved the reservation a day further away. It is hard to tell when there is no internet access here, and I’m using expensive foreign cell service.
2014-9-2 21:00