August 3, 2024 Auberge La Flégère to Les Houches 10.6 miles There’s something nice about doing a circular hike. It’s like completing a ring, making it back to the beginning. I do love a full-circle ending, me. Tie up all those loose ends, make it all connect. Bring us back to where it started. You …
August 2, 2024 Auberge la Boerne in Tré-le-Champ to Refuge La Flégère ~5.1 miles hiked (~2.9 miles on Lac Blanc alternate) Despite the storm, I wake refreshed. The campsite is next to a flowing stream, and boy do I love camping next to a flowing stream. It’s so soothing and almost guaranteed to make me …
August 1, 2024 Auberge Mont Blanc in Trient to Auberge la Boerne in Tré-le-Champ 8.6 miles I’m impressed with Auberge Mont Blanc. It’s enormous, but they still manage to provide hikers with everything they need. Enough showers with hot water and good water pressure? Check. Friendly employees and a nice bar? Check. A buffet breakfast …
July 31, 2024 Chalet la Grange, Champex-lac to Auberge Mont Blanc, Trient 10 miles Another morning, another half-awake scramble to get moving followed by another delicious breakfast. More of that tangy, thick alpine yogurt that I love! Melissa has provided us with little tureens of it, along with jam, cereal, and of course, freshly baked …
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, …
July 29, 2024 Rifugio Bonatti to Auberge des Glaciers, La Fouly 12.4 TMB miles 14 miles total with side trail Alarm goes off. Snooze. Goes off again. Snooze. It’s going to be a big hiking day, an a challenging one, and I know that I need to get up, but I’m still so eepy and …
July 28, 2024 Courmayeur to Rifugio Bonatti (then bus back to Courmayeur) 7.6 miles Today is an easy day, and we’re slackpacking, and we’re staying in the same place tonight. So there isn’t much of a rush this morning to get up. The ability to spread out in my own extremely comfortable bed after the …
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 …
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 …
July 25, 2024 Les Contamines to Les Champieux (camp) 12.4 miles Breakfast at the refuge this morning reminds me deeply of the albergue breakfasts on the Camino. It’s self-serve style, and it includes coffee, cereal with milk, fresh bread which can be toasted, an assortment of jams, and yogurt. We sit with the same family …
Sarahmarie Specht-Bird 