Champex - Part II

Unfortunately, we couldn’t rest too long as we still had a significant climb ahead of us and had to get back down in time for the chairlift down to Champex.

As we got higher up, the trail became much more rocky and we were basically walking in parallel with the glacier. At one point we came across a couple with a dog on the trail. Seeing a dog isn’t rare at all, but seeing a dog like this is – it was smaller than many of the rocks we were climbing over.

But it was in great shape apparently and kept up with its fellow hikers quite well. And it loved the snow.

We passed a small glacial lake as we got higher and even saw some people hiking on the glacier.











When we had nearly reached our limit (and started worrying that we might not have time to make it back down to the chairlift in time), we finally made it to the refuge. The views were beautiful, with snow everywhere. If it weren’t 80F, I could have easily been convinced that it was mid-winter.











We decided to take the snow / glacier route down as it was much quicker and we were feeling a bit time pressured. While hiking on a glacier requires extreme caution, there were fortunately previously established “trails” that we could follow and we had seen some people not far ahead of us already taking them.










Nonetheless, the “trail” was a bit sketchy at times with some small crevasses that required full attention. Sometimes you could even hear water running through the glacier beneath you, which was both interesting and a bit unsettling.










We ultimately made it down unscathed and made up some much needed time. One minor problem, however, was the fact that there wasn’t a clear route from the bottom of the glacier back to the main trail. As a result, we had to boulder hop for a bit before finally finding a clear path.

Despite making up time by taking the glacial trail, we still were cutting things close and had to pick up the pace once we got to the main trail. As a result, the descent turned into more of a jog / run at times, though in some places the uneven terrain required us to slow down.

The final 45 minutes were exhausting and with every new turn our heart sank as we seemed to not be making any progress back to the chairlift. But just when we were finally about to give up and accept defeat, we saw the lift and it was still operating. We didn’t want to take any chances, so we kept running until we got to the boarding area. And according to the clock nearby we only had a couple of minutes to spare.

Had the lift closed, we would have had a further 90 minutes of hiking ahead of us in order to reach the bottom of the mountain. And given the energy that we had expended over the past hour, I wouldn’t have been surprised if it would have taken us far longer.

Once we got on the lift, however, I wondered whether the hike down would have been preferable. Going down a steep chairlift such as this one was definitely not for the faint of heart. We were basically looking straight down a slope extending 1,000+ feet for about 20 minutes, swaying uncomfortably whenever the operators had to stop it momentarily.










Emilie just stared at the mountains in front of us and wouldn’t look down (perhaps I should have followed her strategy). Here’s the view that she had…

***

Since the chairlift shut off required us to finish the hike relatively early, we decided stop at Les Bains de Lavey on the ride home (this is where we stopped following the Champéry hike in June). As with our previous visit, the baths proved to be a nice way to relax the muscles after a long hike.