Au revoir, Switzerland! Ciao, Italy!
After breakfast, we had a private bus transfer to a small village in the Val Ferret, the starting point for today’s hike.
Our guide, who has led multiple tours around Mont Blanc this summer, chose an alternative trail to ascend on our way to the first refuge at La Peule. Rather than take the gravel road, we faced a steep climb that got my heart and lungs pumping right away.
But, as usual, the trail provided spectacular scenery, including a view of Mont Dolent, the only peak that is part of all 3 neighboring countries (Switzerland, Italy, France). We were also mostly by ourselves on this side trail although we did meet the lead team of the PTL (a UTMB event for the crazies who aren’t satisfied with only 170KM) moving quickly in the opposite direction.
Looking down over the small village where we started from this morning.
We kept climbing, and we eventually arrived at the refuge owned by a Romanian family at La Peule (6,794 feet). As Ron noted, our line item for Coke Zero/Coke in the budget was increasing with each refuge stop! We also enjoyed the local baked goods when available, apple streudel this morning.
Refueled, we continued on with our ascent to the pass, the highest point that we will visit on this trip at 8,323 feet.
That’s where we are going! Keep going up!
Once we reached the top of the pass of Col Ferret, we officially crossed the border into Italy!
The view from the top of Col Ferret was simply amazing. We had our picnic lunch on the grass mountainside overlooking the valley below where we would be descending to after lunch.
Our guide warned us that it was a very steep descent and technical in some spots. Overall though, the trail wasn’t as rocky as the descent on the first day, so I made it down to Refuge Elena without a meltdown (although, I was happy to be what I thought was down at the time).
Another refuge, another little red ambulance. I needed it for the final push down to the valley floor.
Once we were finally down, we had a short wait for the public bus that would take us to our hotel in Courmayeur, Italy. The bus was very crowded, standing room only, and our driver had to negotiate getting around oncoming buses on very narrow roads. Ah, welcome to Italy. Moreover, it turns out that we walked to the wrong hotel after we arrived, and once we found our correct hotel, we were dismayed to learn that our bags had not been dropped off from the courier yet. Apparently this is a common occurrence due to traffic delays in the tunnel through the mountain.
In desperate need of a shower and change of clothes, we decided not to venture out until our bags arrived later. Meanwhile, the AirTags that I had purchased for this trip came in handy, as I anxiously tracked the location of our bags while waiting in our room.
Our delayed baggage resulted in a late dinner out at a local restaurant with the group. While our meal was very high quality, the portion sizes were small, which did not make it the best option for a bunch of hungry and tired hikers (today’s hike was approximately 14k with an elevation gain/loss of +2,296 feet/-1640 feet).
Under different circumstances, Courmayeur is a town that I likely would have enjoyed exploring more. A tour group with a similar itinerary to ours opted to have a rest day here the next day. One of the key UTMB races (CCC) starts here on Friday, which certainly added to the atmosphere in town during our brief stay. We had observed Courmayeur from a distance on Sunday when we were at the station on the Italian side of the panoramic Mont Blanc gondola. It’s wild to realize where we’ve hiked around the mountain since then!