July 26, 2024

Les Chapieux to Rifugio Elisabetta

8.6 miles

When I poke my head out of my tent this morning, Grace’s first question is “Coffee?” Man, it’s nice hiking with a fellow caffeine addict in a country with copious coffee. We start with some camp coffee though—to be followed by coffee at the store next to the pizza place because ¿por qué no los dos? While she’s boiling the water I work on sewing up the holes in the shorts portion of my hiking skirt. I think this is going to be my poor skirt’s last adventure. The spandex is just disintegrating. It’s been a good run, hiking skirt. Let’s see if you can last this hike.

After our first in-tents coffee we pack up our gear and walk over to the store next to the pizza place, which was closed last night but which I want to go into now because they sell local honey and who knows what other knickknacks. It’s the same guy working the store when I go in. Is he just everywhere around here? I order a café au lait and croissant as well as a magnet, a tiny jar of Nutella, and a Coke for later. What is budget? I am in France okay!! Let me cook!

After our breakfast we go over to the Auberge La Nova for a stamp on our TMB passports. It’s not even open yet, but a woman comes to the door and graciously stamps them for us. It’s an extra cute stamp because it has a marmot! I hope this bodes well for today and our marmot sighting possibilities.

The first part of the walk is on the road, and we absolutely fly. The road soon meets up with the trail, and this trail is very nice, very packed in, slightly rocky but not crazily so. We have a gorgeous view towards the Aiguille des Glaciers and the snow-covered peaks and glaciers around it. Every time we stop, the trail seems to change slightly. The view contains the the same mountains, but we see them from different aspects and shades of daylight as we advance.

No matter how many photos I take and landscapes I try to soak in, I just don’t succeed. I know next to nothing about these mountains. I don’t know the names of the flowers I see growing everywhere. I can’t read the informational signs. I don’t know the deep history or the names of any of the peaks other than wheat I see on panoramic information posts. And yet I still feel at home in these mountains. Not speaking the languages of the people. Not knowing the names. Just existing in awe beneath, among them.

The trail is so smooth and we are having such a good Type 1 Fun time and before we know it we’ve burned through almost three miles and we’re at the first waypoint on today’s map: Ville des Glaciers. True to the description on FarOut, there isn’t much there, but we still manage to make use of the toilets and have a little snack break, wherein I eat the little raspberry tartlet I bought at the store this morning. It’s obviously delicious. Will I gain weight on this hike? Maybe. I don’t care. It feels like I’ve never fully experienced the soul-rending joy that the ability to taste good food can bring until I went on a hike in France. If I died today I’d be happy. I ate the damn raspberry tart and loved it. I hiked in the mountains in the sunlight!

The amazing, perfect, wide, well-graded uphill trail continues until it spits us out at Refuge des Mottets, which is our planned lunch spot. It’s early, but what the heck! We take a seat at the nice tables on the lawn beneath the towering massif and overlooking the valley and order homemade vegetable soup, plus a half-pint of beer for me and a Perrier for Grace. The soup comes with a basket of thick bread. I’m sorry, what? Four pieces of inch-thick bread to dip into our whole-ass bowls of soup! (I may or may not be a little wine tipsy as I write this!) After the soup I finish off the dark chocolate I bought from Les Houches and then I am very, very full.

The uphill after this is a little rough for a while. I am extremely full. “I’m so full!” I call to Grace as I slowly make my way up a switchback.

“We’re just a couple of soup girls!” she responds.

I have to put music on. I just can’t do this hill without some Gizzy. PetroDragonic Apocalypse does the job. We climb up, up, the landscape subtly shifting, the goats visible down below with their guard dogs barking, the ever-present line of mountains on every side. Some people pass us; we pass some people. There are wildflowers galore, and these, too, are changing as we hike on and into different valleys.

I have to stop for a few breaks along the way, but soon we can see the top of the climb in the distance, the stone marker indicating the end of the up. A few more steps, the last bit of “Flamethrower,” and we’re at the top of the Col de la Seigne, the pass that also marks the Italian border. We walked from one country into another!

We are both very wiped from the climb and we have plenty of time, so we take a luxurious break in the grass. There is service here! I text my family so they know I’m alive and then instantly get onto the social medias and barrage my Instagram story with photos of mountains. We watch hikers come and go, then when there’s a pretty empty patch, we have a little photo shoot.

Eventually it feels like time to move. It’s all down from here to our stop for the night! We are descending into another perfect U-shaped glacial valley edged with sharp, dramatic mountains, and the trail is wide and perfect as it meanders down.

About a half mile from the summit there is a building marked as a shelter on FarOut, but it is actually an emergency shelter as well as a museum dedicated to the geology and ecology of the area. One of the people working there sees us checking out the photos of local flowers on the wall and gives us a brochure of alpine flora so we can identify flowers when we see them. I am overjoyed and am provably far too ebullient in her general direction, but now I will know the names of plants!

We thank the kind folks at the museum and then continue our descent. My mind starts to wander and I’m thinking of the “marmot droppings” chocolate candy I saw at the Carrefour in Les Houches and how it will be disappointing if I don’t see a marmot, and at that exact moment I see a lumbering shape go kerplunking across the trail some ways ahead.

“Oh my god, it’s a marmot.” I state this forcefully and then we begin hiking faster, zooming down the trail trying to get a closer look. This particular marmot eludes us and dives into a hole, but I spot another one farther ahead. We zoom on once again. It’s gone again. I peer into the distance trying to manifest a nearby marmot, but no luck. However, I see a shape in the distance. It just has to be. So I get out my camera with its extraordinary zoom and sure enough, it’s a marmot splatting on a rock. What an absolute king.

And there is another one nearby, its head poking upwards as if on watch for predators.

We’re on marmot lookout the rest of the way down. The trail is conducive to that: it continues to be wide, flat, dry, relatively free of obstacles, surrounded by nothing but views. It is the opposite of the Superior Hiking Trail. There are no more marmots today, as far as we can see, but I feel hopeful for our future sightings.

It’s not long before we can see the grey slate of Rifugio Elisabetta. I’m excited about this refuge because it’s in the most gorgeous location, perched up on a hill beneath two glaciers. I can’t get enough of the way it looks against the icy blue-white of the enormous glacier and waterfall in the distance.

It’s a tough climb up, but once we’re there we appreciate the amazing views on the deck of the refuge as well as the very nice looking dining area. It’s bound to have all kinds of snacks and drinkies and a passport stamp! We check in with the host, who, by her helpfulness and general positive demeanor I take to be the Julia referenced in the FarOut comments, and then another worker takes us to the spot to leave our shoes and poles and then our dormitory room.

Everything within me revolts the moment I see this room. It’s the “large” dormitory, but I would not call the room large. It ostensibly has many bunks, but technically speaking there is only one three-tiered bunk bed. It’s just that this bunk bed takes up nearly all the space in the room and also holds about 20 people. There are not individual beds but a sort of row of places to sleep on one large continuous mattress, such that when you reserve a bunk, you are going to be sleeping on the same surface as someone you do not know, and you may roll over on them. Think of the “Roll over, roll over” song, or perhaps the bed that chocolate factory Charlie’s grandparents lived in.

“These top ones are yours,” the guy gestures to us.

The top of this bunk structure is not even visible from the small doorway opening.

“How do we even get up there?” I ask, possibly somewhat rudely, but the claustrophobic panic is already setting in.

“Oh, you go around the side and then there’s a ladder in the back.”

We spot said ladder, then try to figure out how to manage taking a shower, getting all our stuff organized, and claiming our spots. There are backpacks taking up every free corner of the room, nowhere to spread out, and I feel like I’m about to snap.

“This room is stressing me out,” I say to Grace. “I’m going to take my pack outside somewhere and figure this out.”

So I take my pack to the front room with the poles and shoes and start to sit my pack on a bench, but a guy comes up behind me and acts like he needs the space. I pick a more unused looking side, and two people come over to the wall next to me to get refuge-provided indoor shoes. There is literally nowhere I can go in this place to get away from people or be out of someone’s way. Am I just out of practice with hostels? Am I too old for this? Or is this just a profoundly terrible shithole of an accommodation? I guess the sleep-in-a-row style is reminiscent of shelters on the AT, but at least then everyone had their own sleeping pad, and besides, that was free.

After I’ve gathered a bag of what I think I’ll need for the night, I rush to put my pack back in the room because I hear more people coming and I want to hop in line for the shower. I do this, just behind Grace, and this proves to be a smart move because before long it’s at least six people deep. When I get into the shower insert my hot water token and try to work as fast as I possibly can to wash before the time runs out. I guess I either underestimate what 18 liters of hot water feels like, or they ran out, because the water turns icy cold when I’m still in the middle of rinsing off. I do my best not to absolutely have a meltdown, manage not to scream as the ice water scalds me, and get out of there as fast as I can.

Back at the enormous mega-bed, Grace and I do our best to set up and then head to the dining area for a drink.

“It’s time for alcohol,” I declare aloud, just as I try opening the door and it’s locked.

“Ha!” a lady laughs in the adjacent room. “Nope, it’s not time for alcohol! They’re closed to prepare for dinner.”

Of course they are. We go outside where it is very cold and windy to wait for dinner, just because there aren’t crowds of people here.

Eventually they wave us in and Julia (I’m still assuming this is her name) assigns us to a table. We have a pleasant chat with the people there, including Sam from London, who is hiking with his father. It turns out that he’s also a climber and has been competitively climbing since childhood, so we have some common ground there and it’s nice not to just awkwardly look down at my plate the whole time.

Dinner is risotto followed by pork, green beans, and potatoes, then a pudding. Grace and I go through two small bottles of white wine in a desperate attempt to get drunk enough to pass out in the mega-bed dorm from hell. People start milling about after dinner but we stay at the table writing, rotting on the internet (thankfully, at least there is service here for distraction), and trying to get tired. Finally we can’t put it off any longer and we go into the dungeon we’ve been sentenced to.

I climb awkwardly up to the third level and then Grace has to help me haul my sorry ass up onto the bed. My neighbor is already settled in, so I try not to disturb them as much as I can as I shuffle into my sleep sheet and accept my fate.

I don’t sleep. In fact I’m writing this from the bathroom right now at 12:30. Sufjan did me a solid and put me out for maybe half an hour but I’ve been awake otherwise. I’m currently debating pulling out my sleeping pad and setting up camp on the floor. I wonder if anyone would bother me or yell at me. Or I may just crawl back into the hole and do what they told me. Who knows. Only time will tell how desperate I will become.