Tour du Mont Blanc, Day 8

The night before, we had made our minds up that taking the lower elevation route which sometimes is also referred to as the Bovine route will be a wiser choice today. We were too tired to tackle the more demanding Fenetre d'Arpette route when an easier alternative exists, plus the weather was looking warm today, even warmer than yesterday and we didn't want to take any risk.

Since Relais d'Arpette lies on the Fenetre d'Arpette, to go through the Bovine route we had to backtrack a little bit to the main trail and then continued to descend to the valley. The first few kilometers were indeed mostly downhill. We passed one village or two, this time it seems they were larger villages than the ones we walked past yesterday, full of orderly wooden houses. Here I started to notice that there were so many people. Where did all of these people come from? Up until today I would usually recognize a face or two but now there were just multiple groups of people suddenly appearing out of nowhere, and this is the first time where I really felt that the trail was truly crowded. I thought this route would have been quieter since more people would have probably opted for the Fenetre d'Arpette route given that it was forecast to be dry for the entire day. Even the Dutch trio also told us they were going to do the Fenetre d'Arpette route.

The trail got even more crowded as we entered a rockier, narrower train that will lead us to Arp Bovine which would be our highest point of the day. I honestly didn't really remember much of this section except that there were waaaay too many people on the trail, we were stuck in hikers traffic jam and had to pass people multiple times. The only faces we recognized that we saw today were Sophie and Pascale, who passed us when we first started our uphill climb, and I was so relieved to see them because I had started to think we were lost in another trail since the atmosphere just felt so different from our previous days where we first saw each other.

When bumping into Sophie she asked me where we are headed, and so I told her our story about how we had to modify our itinerary yesterday and ended up getting a last minute spot at Col de la Forclaz. "We are staying there too!" she exclaimed, and she mentioned that she was glad to see us again. "I forgot to ask you, I saw you were sketching yesterday, and I was wondering if you can make a quick sketch for me?" I told her I'll try and I took a mental note to spare some time to sketch in Col de la Forclaz today.

Finally we got to the top and the ground flattens, and from here we had a sprawling view of the district of Martigny from above. Staying in Martigny was going to be our last resort if we couldn't find any bed, but staying in a town quite off the trail means we would probably have to depend on the bus to get from and back to the trail.

We made it to Alp Bovine, which is a hut that I thought would be open but apparently has closed down for the season. The hut has an outdoor area full of tables that were fully occupied by people, we couldn't even find an empty table to have our picnic lunch, and so we resorted to just sitting on one of the benches to enjoy the packed lunch we carried from Relais d'Arpette. This time, our packed lunch was bulghur with an apple and a refreshing drink. We suspected that since the weather was really nice today, it's possible that there were a lot of day hikers as well, which would explain why there were so many people I didn't recognize from the trail.

Afterwards it was all downhill all the way to Col de la Forclaz, which - staying true to the theme today - was also the busiest mountain pass we encountered so far, far from the remoteness of Col de la Croix du Bonhomme for example. I learned from the stickers on the door of the hut that the GR and the Haute Route also passes by this mountain pass which probably explains the crowd.

When we got there, Sophie and Pascale were already chilling in the restaurant, having their lunch. Meanwhile we made a brief ice cream stop as we waited for check in and once we were able to check in, we called our friends and took a quick nap. We were absolutely spent even though the hike wasn't the toughest we had done in the past week, but I guess our fatigue had accumulated, and the crowd made it difficult for me to enjoy the trail. I still managed to do a quick sketch from the restaurant but after that it was dinner: vegetable soup, ratatouille, fries, and ice cream. And sleep. Lots and lots of sleep.