July 30, 2024

Auberge des Glaciers, La Fouly to Chalet la Grange, Champex-Lac 

10.5 miles 

One of the many nice things about this refuge is that breakfast is a buffet that ranges from 6:30-10:00, as opposed to other refuge breakfasts that are at one set time. There’s not a lot of rush as a result, and I’m able to catch a little extra sleep. The breakfast, like the dinner, is delicious. I love the yogurt here; it’s not very sweet but rather kind of tangy, and I add some fruit preserves and crunchy cereal to it and it is so very refreshing. We get another chance to talk with our table mates from last night as well, which is lovely.

The first part of the hike today is very, very chill. It’s a long, gentle downhill though forest, meadows, and hillside ridges. As we cross the river and leave La Fouly, I get weirdly sad to leave. It was a cute place!

“Bye, La Fouly!” I say aloud, to no entity in particular.

Grace replies, in her immediate way, “We Fouly enjoyed our stay!”

“I have to write that down.”

The walk is lined with wild strawberries, and we stop and pick them. They are like nature’s fruit snack and such a little gift. 

We get on a roll with a conversation that ranges from favorite Christmas movies to the United States’ collective issues with food and eating. It’s really interesting and engaging, and between that and the easy trail, when I check FarOut, we’ve already gone about halfway for the day.

We take a break in the shade on the side of a gravel road. I eat a cake I bought in the supermarket last night, which Google Translate really struggles with and can’t seem to figure out. It’s some sort of chewy baked good which tastes vaguely of apple. The label is really cute, so I save it. Hooray for mystery Swiss snacks!

A bit later we walk through the lovely town of Les Arlaches. There are no services here, but the buildings are so old and lopsided but in a well-kept and beloved kind of way. There are also gnomes everywhere, as well as flowers, a tiny model of a church, and a very cute cat in a tree. 

We reach the bottom of the gentle descent and take a seat on the covered outdoor patio of the only restaurant in town. I’m suddenly so hot and out of it even though the day hasn’t been that difficult. We both order sandwiches and sodas, which we eventually get, and finish, and pay, and then head up the ascent to Champex-Lac. 

It’s so very hot and exhausting when we start going up, but the climb is honestly nothing compared to what we have done so far on this trail. It’s forested, which is nice, and the grade is not terribly steep. On the way up I finish Remarkably Bright Creatures. It is a heartwarming treasure of a book, and if one is looking for engaging, sweet fiction about animals and human relationships, I would strongly recommend it. The only reason I don’t cry at the ending is because I’m breathing hard on the way up a very dusty climb on the side of a mountain in Switzerland. 

There is a piped spring next to an absolute unit of a picnic table close to the top of the climb, and we stop here and have a little break. As we’re sitting there, Diego, one of the guys we had dinner with at Elisabetta and who we’ve seen on and off since then, rolls up. 

“I took the wrong trail!” he explains. Apparently he accidentally took a mountain bike trail straight down a sunny hill and had to climb all the way back up to get on track. Been there, man.

We have a nice little chat for a few minutes once he recovers and we’ve had some water. He’s from Peru, but he’s studying in the Netherlands, and this is his first major long-distance hike. We talk for a bit about hiking in general, and how we’re all going to jump in the lake at the top of the hill. Soon we all get going so we can get to said lake.

Champex-lac is a bougie little vacation town on the edge of a lake of the same name. When we arrive, we can see people enjoying being on the water, paddle boarding and riding in paddle boats. We walk around the edge of the lake looking for a good place to rest and put our stuff, when we hear a friendly “hey!” 

It’s Jeanne and George from last night! We sit down next to them and then get prepared to get in the water. Jeanne takes photos and a video as we get in, squealing, to the freezing water. 

It’s very shocking at first, but also refreshing after the heat of the day. We swim out, then tread for a while, trying to get used to the cold. 

“This is so cool!” I say. 

“Literally!” Grace replies.

“I really lake this place!”

She laughs slightly maniacally. “We are having a completely normal time!”

After a few moments we emerge and bask in the sun on the grass. Jeanne and George are staying in a different spot tonight, but the same place tomorrow, so we bid them “see you later.” Watching the video she took later, we laugh at ourselves and our reluctance giving way to eventual delight. 

“They’re getting in the water, maybe,” she narrates. Then, when we’re finally in and swimming around, “These are two happy girls.”

Indeed. After our swim we lay on the grass and eat our snacks. Grace pulls out a chocolate bar that is deeply melted.

“What’s that?” I ask.

“A turd,” she responds, deadpan. “It’s crunchy. But also somehow creamy at the same time.” She starts to crack at the end and we end up in mouth-stretching, eye-squinting laughter. 

“I feel like this hike has made me so unhinged,” she says. 

“Welcome. Hiking makes you happy, but it also kind of makes your brain smoother.” (I’ve blatantly stolen this description from Machine.)

We have about a mile left to our refuge, and we decide to get up and get there. We walk through the small town, up a hill, and down and around a bend until we see the sign for Chalet La Grange, nestled deep in a green valley below the mountains. It’s a renovated old building, with that look of age on the outside but, once we get closer, the clear trappings of modernity: a huge open kitchen, big glass doors and windows, light wood. 

We check in with the one woman working there, then start our refuge tasks of showering (it’s the best shower I’ve experienced so far on this trip; the water pressure makes me see God), charging, and generally settling in. We’re in a dorm again, but it’s large and spacious this time. We take two beds on the floor with no bunks above us, so it feels much more comfortable. We still have an hour before dinner, so we order a beer and drink it outside in the garden while writing.

It’s a small refuge, so, like on the first night, there are just two tables for dinner. We end up at the table with four French-speaking people who talk exclusively to each other in French the whole time. Meanwhile, the other table sounds so fun. There are two American girls, a friendly couple from the Netherlands, and a person from Argentina who, from my eavesdropping, seems to live in Ireland. They’re talking and laughing throughout the meal, and I spend my dinner deep in FOMO. I want to be at the fun table! Put the English speakers together! But even with these mild frustrations, the dinner is lovely, with a tomato soup, a cheesy potato casserole of some sort, a salad, and dinner of cake with apricot and whipped cream. It’s all cooked by the woman who checked us in, whose name is Melissa. It’s a one-woman show here, and she does an amazing job!

After dinner I have another beer and we hang out outside for a bit, but it gets cold so everyone gets chased inside after a while. Grace and I aren’t quite ready to go to bed yet though, so we play a couple rounds of tiny Uno, then some Farkle, and then finally, we go upstairs and crawl into our extremely comfy beds.