Day 9 Champex to Trient

We expected rain and were not disappointed! It rained heavily as we left Champex and it was cold. The cloud had lifted and the sun kept trying to brighten up the day, but it was never destined to succeed. Laurence then decided to amuse us by testing the tape at the edge of the field to see if it was really an electric fence....it was!! Nice one Laurence!!



After passing some pretty alpine villages with several of the chalets flying both the canton and the Swiss flags, we started the climb up to Bovine and the Col du Forclaz. The way was steep and all too frequently the mud squelched around our boots and sucked at my poles. The CCC runners, who passed last night, had transformed the path into a sloppy mud slide, poor things, how horrendous to be running this track in the cold and the dark.


We soon started to see snow, at first small patches, then enough for Laurence to make a snowball, then a light blanket covering the grass. The cloud was low and it gave the landscape a silent eerie quality. In the distance we heard melancholy mooing and cows bells - I would also feel pretty melancholy if I had to stand outside in this cold!!



We had planned to buy lunch at the farm at Bovine and for the last half hour I had been visualising a steaming cup of hot chocolate, but as often happens at the end of the season, the farm was closed. So we ate what Nigel unkindly calls bird food, ie nuts and sultanas, whilst standing there in the snow and we swiftly decided to carry on before we froze.

The path skirted around the hill and soon started to go down toward the Col du Forclaz. I sang 'mud, mud, glorious mud' to myself as my boots and waterproof over trousers became more and more plastered with the thick brown stuff. We turned to look behind us and saw a beautiful Christmas card scenery fir trees and snow.



As we dropped down further the sun peeped out and gave us tantalizing glimpses of Martigny way down in the valley. Then we were at the col and soon slipping down the very steep (and still muddy) path down to Trient, its pink church and village buildings looking like a toy town.



Home for the night was the Relais du Mont Blanc where we were in the third floor dorm with a cheerful and noisy group just finishing their TMB. I used my earplugs to reduce the volume and got a surprisingly good nights sleep.

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Location: Relais du Mont Blanc, Trient