Haute Route Day 1 - Chamonix to Trient

As I write this, it's the end of day 1. I'm huddling on a coach in the hallway of an auberge in Trient, trying to get as close to the feeble, slow wifi signal as possible. I took about 150 photos today and I'll bet only about 5 of them make it out to the cloud before dinner...

It was great to start the day in Chamonix. Finally, after months of preparing and thinking about it, we were starting.

The forecast looked better than it had the night before: cloudy, but no rain until the afternoon.

We had the usual nice European hotel breakfast buffet, snagged some hard-boiled eggs and a little extra bread for lunch, checked out, then left our "non-hiking" bags in the lobby of the hotel to be transported to our lodging for tonight.

Following the advice of AlpineHikers and many others, we decided to skip the first 6+ miles out of Chamonix that are fairly flat, routine and populated. Michele drove us to the recommended starting point in a little town up the valley from Chamonix called Montroc and dropped us there, heading back to Champéry for a busy work week.. she'll see us 10 or so days from now in Zermatt.

The hike started out immediately uphill, and very quickly shifted from town to forest. We climbed up through trees and clouds for an hour or so with nice chilly air but no views of the Mont Blanc, glaciers, or other mountains.

Eventually the forest opened up into high alpine fields. We kept climbing, reaching the Col de Balme, where the trail crosses from France into Switzerland.

The refuge up there was packed with hikers of all types - tourists who had taken gondolas to get there, trail runners, day hikers, hikers on long trips like us, and backpackers loaded with big packs. I went into the refuge to check the menu, saw the long line for coffee, and then heard an American asking "could you just make me a flat white". "A what??", asked the poor woman behind the counter. I left.

The next phase of the hike was all downhill, ending in Trient. We expected it would take us about two hours. With rain still incoming, we decided to go as far as we could rather than to sit up on top eating a picnic lunch. The rain caught us about noon, perhaps a third of the way down. We put on rain gear and kept going. Fortunately the first wave of rain only lasted about half an hour.

We kept going down through switchbacks and forest, arriving on the outskirts of the little village of Trient around 1:30 in the afternoon. Right there was a cute little refuge serving lunch. Spectacular. We had burgers and crepes, enjoying watching the stream of hikers coming off the mountain and heading over to the nearby camping area.

After eating, we walked to the far end of town to our auberge, where we were spending the night.

And how that went is a separate story. (It was fine. But.. different.)

See Also

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Haute Route Retrospective

Haute Route Epilogue - A Full Perspective