July 19, 2019
After a good breakfast we checked out of the Hotel Richemond and walked to the bus stop, which was behind the hotel. We didn’t have to wait long before it arrived and took us down to Les Houches, the traditional start of the TMB. A lot of other people were heading down there for hiking, too, so the bus was very full.
We got off at the Bellevue gondola station and, after buying our tickets at the senior rate we waited in line to board. Three years ago we had hiked up to the Col de Voza, so we had decided not to do that over again. The ride up was very fast and soon we reached the top without any sweat!
The sky was perfectly blue and we could see Mont Blanc absolutely clear of any clouds. With this in mind we decided to do the Col de Tricot variant route, as our guide book said that the views were spectacular. This turned out to be a dumb mistake.
At first the trail descended, but then it levelled out and was very pleasant walking. Unfortunately it then dropped down very steeply to cross the river which rushed from the foot of the Bionassay Glacier. There was a Himalayan-style bridge, and as we approached it we could hear numerous voices. It turned out that we were behind a large Chinese hiking group and they all wanted their pictures taken on the bridge. After a while the rest of us started to yell at them to get them to move on.
Now the climb to the col began. It was 400 metres up and went through deciduous forest and open meadows. The views were definitely spectacular but the climb was very hard and very steep in spots. Before we reached the col we stopped for a break in a lovely meadow. There were no marmots here but the wild flowers more than made up for it. It seemed to take forever but finally we got there.
The col was our lunch spot, along with about a hundred other hikers. For lunch we had brought ham and cheese mini-baguettes, chips, grapes, bananas, and some stuffed waffles. But we didn’t stop for long because we had quite a way to go yet.
On the other side of the col was an equally long, steep, descent to Refuge du Miage. Now our legs were totally worn out, since we hadn’t done any real hiking since a year ago in Cornwall, where elevation gains are very small. Beyond the refuge we could see that there was more climbing, up to the Auberge du Truc. But there was an access road going off to the right, so rather than doing any more climbing we opted to walk along the road to Les Contamines.
This turned out to be another mistake. Yes, the road did go around the mountain but unbeknownst to us it had quite a bit of elevation gain in the middle. And due to the time of day it was in full sun. Descending the road into Les Contamines was slow too because our legs were very wobbly now.
Eventually we came down to La Frasse, just above Les Contamines. Before we got down into the town Paul luckily noticed a sign for the Hotel Gai Soleil, where we would be staying tonight. That saved us a little bit of walking, anyway. The hotel was really lovely, with people drinking cold drinks in the garden as we arrived. Our room wasn’t overly large but we did have an actual shower rather than a bathtub, which was a bonus.
We had heard from Alpine Exploratory that the hotel served three-course gourmet dinners every day for €25. We didn’t think we were up for a dinner like that but we opted for it, rather than going down into the town to evaluate restaurants and end up with pizza. What a treat it turned out to be!
The starter was a salad of Savoy ham with rocket over two cantaloupe slices with cheese. Absolutely beautiful to look at and really tasty to eat. The main course was cod over a ratatouille and boiled potatoes, and the fish was poached perfectly. And finally the dessert was a raspberry mousse with a pistachio cake as a base and raspberry coulis as a garnish. What a fantastic meal!
The local beer was “Bière du Mont Blanc” which came in four shades—Paul had “rousse” which looked like rosé wine.
West Coast Hikers Around The World 