Tour du Mont Blanc, Day 6

After two very very much welcomed < 15 km days, today we are back to covering roughly 20 km which means today will be a long, long day. Fortunately, Sophie and Pascale were also headed to the same hut so at least we know that our itinerary is not totally unreasonable. I was also looking forward to our second border crossing in the hike: today, we are going to walk to Switzerland! Our next hut is located in Orsieres and while I was feeling a bit sad to say goodbye to all the delicious Italian food, I was also curious about what this side of the mountain has to offer.

Another important information: Rifugio Bertone serves hot chocolate at breakfast! I believe this is the first time I saw hot chocolate as part of the breakfast on the trail.

We started with a pleasant morning walk towards Rifugio Bonatti. It was probably one of my favorite stretches in the TMB because the path was easy and the weather was just nice, despite the clouds covering some of the mountain peaks, but this time the mountains felt so close and I felt so small and it was just an incredible feeling to experience. We reached Bonatti after just two hours so it was too late for anything else for me except for an espresso to kickstart the day. I really wanted to book Bonatti but it was one of the most sought after huts on the trail and so I couldn't manage to snatch a spot. When I arrived there, I could see why - the location was just perfect, especially in a cloudless weather you would be able to see the Mont Blanc and Les Grands Jorasses right in front of your eyes. It seems to be very well run too and the staff was really nice.

Our first climb for the day was towards Rifugio Elena, which didn't feel that difficult because I was distracted by the scenery. As the day went on the weather got better and we had a clearer view of the peaks, glaciers, and also the valley that we left behind.

We had a stop in Rifugio Elena to eat the lunch that we packed from Rifugio Bertone. It was a standard packaged lunch: some sandwich, crackers, and a refreshing apple juice. As we enjoyed our lunch we watched other hikers that looked to me like small, colorful dots moving along the mountainside, tackling the next challenge of the day, which would be to climb the Grand Col Ferret where the border between Italy and Switzerland lies, and also the highest point of the TMB if you exclude the variants.

At first I thought Grand Col Ferret lies on the mountaintop that was visible from Rifugio Elena, but as always, I was wrong. "I think we should stop checking AllTrails to see where we are," Dylan said at some point, because I was compulsively asking him to check how far we were from the col. I guess he had a point. What's better than managing expectations, is not to have any expectations at all.

But what has amazed me after all these days is that so far I had managed to hike every mountaintop that we had to cross, no matter how impossible they may have seemed. Today I still had these thoughts crossing my mind: "wow, that is so high, are we really going to hike that high?" The difference between the first day and the sixth day was, on the first day I would say "no way", and I found it psychologically difficult to accept that yes, I did sign myself up to climb that mountain pass. On the sixth day I knew the answer was "yes probably we have to climb that high, that's okay, and we will make it."

It did make such a huge difference to how I felt throughout the hike. If you haven't noticed, it probably sounded like I was suffering for a bit on the first few days even more than usual compared to my previous hikes, and you were right. Somehow I felt the TMB was harder even compared to the first few days of Alta Via 1. Not physically - my right foot was fine and I haven't injured myself - but more like mentally. I'm not sure what happened, maybe I had underestimated myself, maybe I didn't have enough trust on myself that I would make it to the top of the mountain, and make it to the next hut.

So... yes, the actual Grand Col Ferret was indeed not visible from Rifugio Elena. I found out when I hiked what I thought the col myself only to find that there were more hills to climb and since it was noon, I could feel the sun right above me but we marched on. We also ran into Sophie and Pascale along the way although they ended up continuing ahead of us.

The now clear views of the valley and the mountains also were reminders for me to be grateful that I had a chance to be here, to explore parts of the world that I could only reach by foot. Grateful that my body, after all, was capable of this, I only needed to trust myself enough that it could do it.

We eventually reached Grand Col Ferret - again, there were no specific signage that told us where the Italy - Switzerland border was.

The scenery changed as soon as we made it to the Switzerland side, as if both sides of the col were created by two different artists with differing styles. The dramatic landscape of towering mountains and expansive glaciers switched to a smoother, more lush and green landscape. This switch of countour meant that it was an easy walk all the way to Gite Alpage de La Peule but unfortunately I did realize it was the time of the month for me (which, somehow has always coincided with my hike! I should plan better next time). I suddenly experienced a great discomfort and the next thing I knew was I really needed to get to our lodging. And so instead of a relaxing walk, unfortunately we had to do a brisk walk in order to get to our lodging as soon as possible. Not the experience I imagined when I thought about hiking in the Swiss Alps, but hey...

Once we got to Gite Alpage de La Peule we bumped into Sophie again and she greeted us with a high five. "You guys made it! Great job!" she said. Since she had just finished her check in, she was able to catch us up on all the hut rules - where to put our bag, our hiking shoes, et cetera. In contrast to the private room that we had last night, tonight we slept in basically a barn that was converted into a hut and so we slept in a room containing +- 30 bunk beds, probably my personal record for the biggest number of bunk beds in a room I've slept in so far, after years of traveling in all kinds of huts and hostels.

The hut also has various antiquities displayed and a giant raclette machine in the dining hall. Sadly we didn't get to see it in use though! And although this was a converted barn, but there were still many cows outside, the cow bells wouldn't stop ringing and even though I knew I probably wouldn't be able to sleep in the next day because of all of these bells, it was quite a charming, one of a kind experience.

The reality of the hike was at the end of the day I found myself in distress because of the discomfort and my hormones were a mess. Dylan really did all he could to comfort me and I was very grateful for his support. He knew my first aid in situations like these was a cup of hot chocolate and that did make me feel better. Another thing that helped afterwards was a big, generous dinner that we ate together with three Portuguese hikers: a big portion salad, raclette casserolle (I had to ask the staff if this really was just for me and she said yes), and the fanciest ice cream I had ever seen and eaten on this trail - or any trail really - which we guessed were probably made from the milk of the cows living in the area, because it tasted so, so creamy and rich.