The trip began in Prague. Although we got lost in castles; visited a botanical garden; crashed an opera, a play, and several concerts; crossed famous bridges, and ate from a stall in the town square, there's almost no photographic evidence. The only really touristy photo we got was of the Astronomical Clock.
A crowd gathers every hour on the hour to watch it strike - a fabulous production that begins by death marking the passing of time and ends with a triumphant cry from the (animated!) golden rooster at the top.
From Prague we took an assortment of trains, planes, and automobiles to get to the start of our trek: Champex Lac, Switzerland. After a nice dinner and a quick run around the lake, we were off to bed early, eager to begin the hike.
After a good night's sleep and a hearty breakfast, where Alex nearly consumed a whole jar of homemade apricot preserves, we were on to Day One: Champex Lac to La Lechere. We anticipated a "gentle start, 11 miles through Swiss farming valley," or at least that is what Alex promised in his Excel worksheet.
We began most days with a self portrait. Today's was in front of the lake, and Alex's hair was rockin' while Amy was all in pink.
The lake itself was gorgeous with its perfect reflection of the mountains and sky.
And, just in case you missed it the first time, another photo of Alex rockin' the bed head. All smiles to start 110 miles!
After less than a mile walking through the village, we found the start of the trail marked by a patch of purple.
These were just a taste of the many wild flowers we'd see during our trek.
After climbing down a bit and then crossing a road, we started up again on a trail that was marked every so often by tree stump carvings, often of mushrooms. Sometimes even rabbits with mushrooms.
There were also plenty of signs describing which mushrooms to eat and not eat - all helpfully written in French. The Mushroom Trail led us up and around before dropping down into the Swiss Val Ferret, a valley dotted by small villages.
Just before the village of Les Arlaches, we passed a large group of people going the other way. Most were carrying only small backpacks, which surprised us as everyone we'd passed so far today had giant backpacks, much bigger than even ours - until we saw the donkey. Loaded down with packs, all it wanted to do was eat clover. It kept having to be convinced otherwise by the person with its lead.
(An attempt to capture a photo of the donkey. It's near the back under all of those red bags.)
Our only wrong turn of the entire trip happened towards the end of this little string of villages, and, especially for a 110-mile adventure with Alex, it was pretty minor. We missed a left hand turn and walked a quarter of a mile out of our way before Alex realized we were not where we were supposed to be. We walked back up the road, found the proper turn, and were quickly back on track.
As we hiked along, the Val de la Seleina opened to our right: a first taste of the glaciers and high Alps that would tower over us for much of the trip. The next stage was to climb directly up the lateral moraine on the south side of the valley. First we took in the view, and we were treated to the sight of hang gliders and the moon dancing over the mountains.
We didn't get a close up of the hang gliders (above the butte on the right), but we were able to lasso the moon as it peeked over the central summit using our telephoto lens.
To keep weight down while still taking advantage of our nice camera, we carried two lenses through the hike: a 28 mm manual focus lens that was a hand-me-down from Amy's dad and a 75 to 300 mm telephoto lens. The 28 mm captured the panoramic beauty well...
...while the telephoto allowed us to get in quite close to the majestic mountains and all of their wonders. In this case a series of waterfalls fed by hanging glaciers.
After a stretch of forest we came across a woodland play ground complete with zip line, rock climbing wall, and canopy-top rope bridges.
We only braved the baby zip line, but it was exhilarating!
Entering La Foully we stood before a majestic glacial valley crowned by Tour Noir and Mount Dolent. We didn't know it yet, but as the shared corner of Switzerland, France, and Italy, Mount Dolent would reappear the next day to show its dramatic southern face.
Meltwater is so thick with the fine flour of glacially milled rocks that it is actually called "glacial milk." We giggled for much for of the trip about glaciers and cows sharing so many terms (calving, etc.). (We had a lot of time on the trail, and there were lots of glaciers).
We never tested the water temperature. Signs everywhere warned that water released from hydro-electric plants could cause unexpected flash flooding. Too bad.
From here we climbed up again into the green Swiss Alps...
...passing quaint little houses here and there on the rolling hills before arriving at the final destination of Day One: le Gite de Lechere. We took showers, put on warm clothes, and began the one luxury we'd allowed ourselves - the paperback book "A Game of Thrones" by George R. R. Martin. We alternated reading chapters to each other until we were called for dinner.
Dinner this evening was quite interesting. It was our one really disappointing dinner of the trip. Sitting down with three older ladies from Denmark who were also staying in the hut that evening, we all hungrily devoured the basket of bread on the table. Then fondue arrived. A giant pot of hot cheese. And nothing else. We all stared at each other and tried to figure out whether we'd missed something. Was she coming back with yummy things to dip in the cheese? After a few minutes we realized she was not. Desperate to eat and out of bread, we called our host back over, and she gave us an awkward explanation of how to eat fondue.
No, no, no, we tried to explain, we just didn't have anything to dip into the cheese.
Oh, well then, here's another basket of bread.
And that's what we ate: bread and cheese. We did get pear sauce for dessert, which Amy was ever so thankful for after so much cheese.
Sleep came quickly that night, and before we knew it, it was time to start Day Two.
Love it!!! My favorite pictures is the bunny. The fondue story was hilarious, nothing like a giant vat of molten cheese after a hard day's hike.
ReplyDeleteNice images of your first day! Goes to show you that "Man cannot live by bread alone".
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