It started so beautifully. We awoke in Courmayeur in a nice hotel. It was sunny out, and we only had a short hike today, just over one mountain. We had even found a bus that would take us to Arnuva (1769m) to start the hike.

Well, it may have been nice in Italy, but it wasn’t in Switzerland. And that bad weather was pouring over the Grand Col Ferret. As soon as we were out of the bus, the wind was strong and it was cold. The bus ride had not been good for my friend, so we had to wait awhile for her to recover. Then it was slow going up. It took us an hour to get up to Refuge Elena (2062m). There we stopped for some lunch, and we got back into the game.

It took us anothe hour and a bit to climb all the way to the top of Grand Col Ferret (2537m) and the wind was howling the entire way. It was snowing too. We were in the clouds so there was no view to enjoy. We got there around three, which means we spent a total of 24 hours in Italy.

Going down it was wet and miserable. We warmed up in La Peule (2071m) where they were attempting to have a fire going in the refuge. Then we continued down, past Ferret and into La Fouly (1593m). We were just in time at a quarter to seven to catch the last bus that would take us to Champex.

This is where things went worse. Last night, I had looked for a place to stay. The website for planning hiking Mont Blanc listed only one place with space in Champex, so I had paid a deposit to guarantee we had a place to sleep for tonight. That was Relais d’Arpette. I later discovered that there were other places with room, but by then I had already paid.

Unfortunately it was not actually in Champex. The bus took us to the edge of town, and in French told us which way to walk. There wasn’t anything there. We were cold, tired and hungry. I phoned the place and discovered it was a half hour hike. We were not happy.

Fortunately they sent a car to pick us up. But this place seems to be catering to people hiking, and is on the trail to the hardest hike of the whole trail.

We are tired of hiking. The weather has been lousy. All the effort would be okay if we got some good scenery out of it, but that has only happened on one day. This is no longer worth it. We are going to travel back to Chamonix and get a hotel there so we can have some nice memories of this place.

2015-9-5 21:40