The trail starts at just under 4,200 feet elevation and it gains about 1,000 feet in the first 2 miles. Then it gains 3,500 feet in 2.7 miles where we reached the Fenetre d'Arpette at 2,665 meters (8,743 feet).
A lot of other hikers were having lunch at the top. There was a French couple (who speak English) who were hiking with 2 other people, a couple from San Francisco, 3 young guys from Israel and assorted other people. The Frenchman gave me some red wine to celebrate reaching the top, so I had red wine and a peanut butter sandwich for lunch. Everyone else hikes faster than me on the uphill but I rarely take a break, so I'm usually not too far behind everyone. While we were hiking up we also passed a group of 14 people coming down, who were from the states. They were on an REI (the gear store in the US) group tour and they were doing the Tour du Mont Blanc. Our hike, the Haute Route, and the Tour de Mont Blanc follow the same trails for part of the time.
We didn't stay very long at the top because it was chilly and we started down about 1:45PM. Going down was no piece of cake either. It was a rocky steep slope (even steeper than going up) and we descended 3,400 feet in the first 1.8 miles. Then it was a much more gradual descent (only 530 feet) for the last 1.8 miles.
We got to Champex at 5:30 and checked into the Le Plein Air guest house. It was so nice to get my pack off and take a shower to ease my aching muscles. That was one of my most tiring hiking days ever. There were regular rooms and two 6-bed dormitories in the guest house. One dormitory room was full and the other ended up just being Shari, Jenny (a woman from England) and me. We sat and talked with Jenny for a while. She is on her own, doing the Tour de Mont Blanc. I wish she was doing our hike because I really liked her and I think it would have been nice to spend more time with her. I gave her Becky's website because she may be interested in doing a trek in Nepal sometime.
Shari and I didn't want to pay the price for dinner at the guest house and there was no place to cook there, so we treated ourselves to dinner in a restaurant. We each had a good sized individual pizza and I also had a beer. Shari just had water because a diet coke would have cost more than a beer (4.20 Swiss francs (US$3.15) for a coke versus 3.70 Swiss francs (US$2.80) for a beer). So far, coke costs more than beer in Europe. I had a terific pizza. The description was a bit odd on the menu but our waiter said it was his favorite and it sounded like the Nolio pizza from Bertucci's and it was basically the same pizza - carmelized onions, prosciutto and white sause. This one had an egg yolk (soft cooked) in the center which surprisingly added to the flavor quite nicely. After dinner I just went to bed because I was really tired from the hike.
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