Tour du Mont Blanc, Day 4

A good night's sleep in a 4-bed dorm (instead of the usual 10+ beds), a good hearty dinner, enjoyable companies, and waking up to sunny weather and a short day ahead. What more could you ask for when you are in the mountains? After what had been quite some grueling three days, finally we had a day that felt more like an active rest day instead of a big hike, and at least I felt I deserved it after yesterday. The only small flaw of this morning was discovering that our clothes that we washed yesterday were still damp, so our packs felt a bit heavier than yesterday's.

Knowing that we would be doing half the distance of what we did on Day 3, unlike the Italian runners who rushed their breakfast and left early, we decided to linger around Rifugio Elisabetta for a while. Anish finally taught us how to stretch so we took our sweet time to do some stretching before leaving Rifugio Elisabetta behind. Our first order of business was to descend the hill where Rifugio Elisabetta was at to the valley of Val Veni, then afterwards it was an easy walk through the valley where we walked past several lakes, one of them was Lac Combal.

Once we got to the end of the cluster of small lakes, the trail started to go uphill again - quite steep, in fact - but knowing that we had all the time in the world today, I was not rushing and therefore I was not panicking and the hike felt more enjoyable than the past three days energy-level wise. I had the time to notice all the butterflies (there were so many), the flowers, the vegetations, and had some time to say hello to the sheep. It did feel like a walk in the park. Although it was a rather easy hike, there were still some big hills to climb, so maybe it was just my legs getting used to the hike again. Also it doesn't mean that there were no good views today, quite the opposite! The sun and great weather actually really helped too. Maybe it's the sketcher in me saying this - we had seen some beautiful sceneries on this hike, but everything just looks so much better when the flowers are vibrant, the colors of the valleys pop and the lakes reflect the mountains like an almost perfect mirror. Once we got to the top we took some time to take a small break, reapply some sunscreen, and take in the view of the valley.

Afterwards it was pretty much only walking on level grounds. We didn't pass too many people this time but I remember coming across a dog and his owners just having fun on a good day in the mountains, it seems they were doing a day hike. I could imagine myself, maybe after a cup of coffee or two in the morning, running around here a few times a week if I live nearby.

Before we knew it we emerged from the trail and made it to Maison Vieille, which was one of the rifugios in the area, the other being Gite le Randonneur which is the lodging we had booked for the night that is further down the hill. We have heard good things about the food at Maison Vieille so we ordered two giant portions of polenta and of course, while in Italy, some lemon soda. The restaurant had a good playlist, one of the songs they played was the extended version of Michael Kiwanuka's Cold Little Heart, which totally made my day because even Michael himself didn't play the extended version of the song when I saw him playing Glastonbury's Pyramid Stage!

It was probably the sunniest day since we had started our hike on the TMB and we took this opportunity to dry our damp clothes:

An hour later or so we heard a voice calling our name from behind. It was our friends again, Anish and Sloane, whom we had last seen in Elisabetta. Since we had got time to kill, we decided to stay, and the four of us talked about how we all ended up here, three Americans and an Indonesian sunbathing in hiking attire with tummies full of polenta and pasta. They told us how they used work in tech - just like us - but are taking their sabbatical and are looking for a career switch. I always find people's stories about making conscious big decisions in their lives intriguing, because it tells me of courage that I feel like I've never had. All of the big decisions in my life, it seems, have come from urgency rather than a conscious decision - which is funny to think about, because I always thought of myself as rather adventurous. But apparently these hikes are probably the most adventurous things I have consciously done, and everything other adventurous thing that I did like moving to Germany in 2 months notice was something I did out of necessity.

Anish and Sloane had to continue towards Courmayeur, the Italian counterpart of Chamonix on the other side of the mountain, while we only needed to walk a few steps towards our lodging for the night. They were hoping to be able to catch the ski lift that would take them down to Courmayeur in no time, but the ski lift was already closed for the season, and so they (and us, tomorrow) had to deal with the steep, knee-jerking descent towards town. The four of us made plans to see each other again tomorrow in Courmayeur, since they would be taking two extra days there and we would pass through Courmayeur during lunch time.

I had no particular expectation of our lodging because it was barely mentioned in any of the TMB guides I have read. In the area, people (including Patricia, based on her itinerary) usually stay in Maison Vieille, which I also tried to book but it was already full when I tried to book it. But it was indeed a pleasant surprise: there were about 10 beds in the room but the room was spacious, it didn't feel like I would be sleeping with 10 other people in the room. The bathrooms were clean and probably some of the most well-maintained bathrooms I had seen on the trail so far. Plus the lady who owned the lodging was really kind, and the owners have a few cute dogs - one of them, we know is called Pedro because someone shouted his name. We also befriended another dog and unilaterally decided to call them Pedra.

There was still plenty of time until dinner so we had plenty of time to shower, wash our clothes and hang them dry in the clothing lines, and sketch. We got ourselves some hot chocolate - despite the hot day, it has become an after-hike tradition at this point. The dinner was also lovely and this time we were seated together with two Canadians, Carole and her friend, who were hiking the TMB in the opposite direction. They were probably the first people we talked to that were hiking the TMB counter-clockwise. Carole, too, was in her sabbatical and she had been traveling Europe for the past couple of weeks; her next destination would be Berlin, to run the marathon! I felt such a huge relief to find another person who is doing the TMB at around the same time, and who would be running the marathon like me.

Me being myself, sometimes the guilt of doing too much relaxing today crossed my mind. Today felt almost too good to be true, it felt almost weird to not be suffering. But I was also quick to realize that it was a silly thought. We are not doing the UTMB, after all, all of this nature, beautiful scenery, good food and companions, the time to do things we find joyful like sketching and showering properly, this is why we are here. For all of my reasoning to go on these hikes that I wrote about when I arrived in Les Houches, I started questioning if that was my true intention. Maybe I had been wanting to suffer and prove that I could withstand any challenge I impose myself, but who am I proving this to and what for? Maybe I'll find the answer in the next few days...