July 27, 2024

Rifugio Elisabetta to Courmayeur 

9.8 miles 

Rifugio Elisabetta may have been hell, but everything else has been heaven. This morning is especially so—after we escape, that is. 

I didn’t end up going rogue last night; I dilly-dallied as long as I could in the restroom and then accepted my fate and climbed back up to the top of the mega-bunk. Listening to my audiobook helped a little, but I still didn’t get much sleep and I “wake up” a zombie. Breakfast is a bit underwhelming: there is mostly just bread and everyone is begging the kitchen for more coffee. There is a predictable mad dash to pack up and use the restroom. But after all is said and done, we make it out with only minor emotional lacerations and a profound lack of sleep.

The morning more than makes up for the night. It’s undeniable that Rifugio Elisabetta is in a gorgeous setting, and it gets even more magical as we descend the valley and look back towards the glaciers around it. Too bad it wasn’t as nice on the inside as it was on the outside.

We continue looping downwards into the misty valley, the Mont Blanc massif on our left shifting with every forward mile. The views of glaciers and waterfalls change, clouds move, it becomes lighter. 

We walk along a flat road for a while and I decide to put on my audiobook, Remarkably Bright Creatures, which is due back to Libby tomorrow and which I probably won’t finish before then, but now I’m hooked and try as hard as I can to do so. At the same time, I’m taking in the landscape around me: the valley with its crystal-clear flowing glacial streams working towards slow meadow, the morning light on the rock and snow. I feel peaceful in that specific way that I only can in the mountains. 

The trail takes an uphill turn and gets hard for a while. There are conifers, and then it opens up again and boom, there they are again, the points and spires flanking Mont Blanc and all her companion mountains on the massif, glowing. 

We take a break by a stream and filter water—the first time we’ve had to do so on this trail—and have a little snack. Continuing upwards, the path is just as steep and I enter just as much of a slog, but it’s beautiful the entire time and I can’t even be mad about the uphill because every time I take a rest I get to look around me and I’m still in this wonderland. 

At the top of the climb we take a break to have a proper snack to make up for the lack of protein in our breakfast: a shared bag of Backpacker Pantry Cuban coconut beans and rice. This seems like a popular spot to take a break and have photo shoots—there are a lot of other people milling about, including one large group we’ve been seeing off and on who appear to be on a guided trip with a woman who is leading a donkey who’s loaded down with bags. Poor guy! There are also some people we talked to in the refuge last night. They’re all commiserating about the experience, which validates me.

After a luxuriant break, we continue downhill—it’s all downhill the rest of the way to Courmayeur and we plant to cruise it so we can get to our place in town right at check-in and just vegetate for a minute. 

The descent is gentle at first, meandering across more streams, then around a grassy corner where the massif somehow gets even more impressive across the valley and I am suddenly aware of my entire existence, aware of the privilege to be here, aware of the remarkable capacity of my body, aware of the size and scope of this place and filled with it. I switch over to music. The song I have in mind is “Pleader” by Alt-J. It will forever remind me of the Whites on the AT and the feeling of looking down into a valley you toiled to climb up out of and having all that effort melt away with the majesty of the view before you. I listen to it again now and feel myself carried down the hill, holding my arms out in the breeze. How green, how green was my valley? The orchestral swell. I am alive and floating in these mountains and in the music and there is nowhere else I would rather be. 

Like all things, this high ends. The trail gets steeper, the path gets more crowded. We navigate our way around other travelers and down the slope until we reach Maison Vieille, a refuge and restaurant that is absolutely bumping. I use the restroom, which is a porcelain hole in the floor of the type I have not seen since I was in India, which makes me kind of weirdly nostalgic. It’s hot in the sun and we are ready to be done, so we don’t stick around. 

The trail follows various ski slopes on its way down to the valley. We pass under another gondola and the trail reenters the woods and gets extremely steep. The shade is nice, but the grade is brutal. I’ve never understood how people could say they didn’t like downhill, but now I do. It is rough on the knees. 

Eventually, mercifully, the path levels out and spits us out on a road that takes us into the village of Dolonne. The streets here are narrow and the houses are close together, with doors and windows every which way and lovely flower boxes everywhere. 

Dolonne gives way to Courmayeur proper as it follows a road over a river and up the hill to the city center. It’s suddenly chaos, people and cars everywhere. The part of my brain that loves little shops and exploring cities pokes its head out and looks around. We navigate to our Airbnb rather than stopping, though, and once we finally get there and put our stuff down, we just kind of plop on the couch and breathe for a second. 

After showers and a bit of a rest we emerge for errands. First up is laundry at a tiny self-service laundromat, followed by grocery shopping in an extremely tiny and chaotic Carrefour Express, and then walking along the main pedestrian shopping street. Grace is on the lookout for a sun hoodie because she’s been getting sunburnt pretty badly. Patagonia is a no go, but another local shop has a cute orange Columbia one that she purchases.

Very excitingly, tonight seems to be a festival for a local patron saint. There is a marching band that parades by, as well as some children in traditional outfits accompanied by adults playing accordions. Part of the celebration seems to be a food festival, because people are walking around with wooden plates on strings they can wear around their necks, and they walk up to different food vendors and get snacks. 

We see one of the guys from dinner last night and chat with him for a bit as we watch the traditionally dressed children do a dance. Then we navigate the crowds back to our Airbnb to rest some more. 

The last task of the night is dinner. We decide that we’re in the mood for a good pasta dish. The first place we try is packed, the second doesn’t have an opening until 10, and the third is finally the charm. I order a tagliatelle a la bolognese, Grace goes for a penne arrabiata, and we optimistically order a liter of wine that it takes us two hours to drink. It’s a lovely evening sitting outside talking, and we essentially shut the place down. 

I feel warm and sloshy as we walk back to the apartment. There are two beds in this place so we can both solidly starfish, and I am so looking forward to this rest. Courmayeur has our hearts already: excellent town, excellent mountains, excellent food and wine. And we get to slackpack tomorrow and stay another night! What a true delight.