After sleeping poorly I was not looking forward to the long climb up to the refuge today. A bus service could have taken me part of the way, but I reluctantly resisted this temptation having walked all the way from Galway without missing bits out. As Landry is built on the side of a mountain the climbing began at once, as the route went up narrow roads between traditional grey stone houses, mixed with more modern buildings. A little above Landry was a church with a handsome, bulbous, metal spire, however the sundial on the tower was half an hour fast. There followed a steep climb on an ancient looking track, that might once have been surfaced with stone. Passing through woodland, my route crossed minor roads heading steadily upward.
I was annoyed when the track started to drop, loosing the height I had worked so hard to gain. However, it was doing so to take me into Peisey. An attractive village of stone houses, clustered together, with their now familiar overhanging roofs and wooden balconies. Older buildings were roofed with flat stones, but these irregular materials were being replaced by metal roofs as properties were renovated. I was trying to "pace" myself, to avoid getting tired too quickly, so stopped for an Orangina, that quintessentially French soft drink, although it was sold in a can rather than the distinctive glass bottle. Above the village, high in the sky, a large cabin was traveling across the valley on wires hundreds of metres above me. Called the Vanoise Express it is apparently the biggest cable car in the world, capable of carrying 200 people at a time. Within the village there was also a sort of ski lift where you stood up in boxes rather than sat on chairs.
I continued up the valley, sometimes beside a fast flowing river. Silver bearing lead was mined in one area visited by the path, and there was also a school for miners dating from the 18th and 19th centuries. I would like to have toured the relics of the operation but was concerned I still ahead a long climb ahead of me. A little later I passed a place with donkeys and horses. Donkeys were being led along the track with small children sitting on their backs. Later I passed a donkey returning from my refuge with empty saddle bags having delivered provisions, hopefully for my dinner.
The GR5 led me to a river crossing where the flow was more dramatic than I expected. I later learnt that I had missed a sign (in French) indicating that I should take a different route due to the condition of the river. Instead, I replaced my boots with my "hotel" shoes which I had originally bought to cross rivers in Iceland. Then, after putting all my loose valuables into dry bags, I crossed the river in true, textbook taught manner, my poles facing upstream, using them to provide stability as I found where best to place my feet on the pebble river bed. There was only one tricky spot, where maybe spring floods had cut a deeper channel. Even here, the cold water only came up to my calves, barely wetting the bottom of my trousers, rolled up in comic book fashion.
At the end of a huge car park stood a visitor centre for the Vanoise National Park, closed for lunch, and a refuge where I indulged in a Pepsi and ice cream to prepare me for the climb ahead. There was also a sequence of posters comparing the same views photographed many years ago and more recently. They showed glaciers retreating, ski resorts appearing where cows once grazed, isolated farms expanding into small holiday villages, and the enlargement of a mountain refuge. Unable to put off the climb any longer I started up the path. Fortunately it was not all steeply uphill there were some sections of a gentler gradient and good views of a thin but tall waterfall on the other side of the valley. As the water fell it collected to form separate white veils falling across the cliff. I passed on "Private Fishing" sign which I thought curious as there was nowhere to fish on the mountain side. On rounding a shoulder of the mountain, after a short but steep section of crude rock steps, there was a stretch of "rock hopping" over the glacier smoothed bedrock of gneiss and boulders of limestone. Rocks gave way to damp, grass pasture in a broad valley between tall outcrops of rock. Cows, grouping themselves in herds of different colours, grazed by the path, studiously ignoring me as I passed. The trail was surprisingly busy with day trippers who had walked the considerable height up from the car park, often with young children. Crossing the boundary into the Vanoise National Park was marked by a sign forbidding most things.
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| Climbing into the Vanoise National Park. |
After further climbing I turned off the GR5 onto a path leading to my refuge which went around the Lac de la Plagne. Marmots were much in evidence on this quieter trail. A foot or more long and rather hairy they were not too concerned about my presence but scurried into holes under rocks if I came too close. There were also some smaller "meerkat" like animals, maybe young marmots. One hid in a hole as I walked by, starring at me from its darkness with two black, shiny eyes.
At the refuge I met up again with a couple I had spoken to on both of the previous two nights. We discovered a connection via the oil industry and discussed French and English politics, then adjourned to watch a cow being milked by hand. This was how the refuge obtained fresh milk, they also baked their own bread and had a type of greenhouse for some fresh lettuce or herbs. In this way we whiled the time away before dinner where I was seated with a Flemish family. I was very impressed that their 4 1/2 year old boy and 8 year old girl had managed the climb of at least 500 metres vertically and a walk of several kilometres horizontally from the car park at the base of the valley. Then after a little stroll I was into my sleeping bag cosy inside my tent, bivouacing close to the refuge, and soon asleep while people were still talking around me.
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