Day 2 - Charamillon, France to Champex-Lac, Switzerland

Start: Chamonix-Mont-Blanc, France - Les Écuries de Charamillon End: Champex-Lac, Switzerland - Hotel Splendide Distance: 13.01 miles Elevation Gain: 5,266 feet Elevation Loss: 6,473 feet Link: Strava data

This was by far the hardest day of our trip! We left our cabin at 8am and didn’t arrive at our hotel until 8pm.

While the distance was nothing new, the elevation gain and loss, as well as the trail conditions made for a long, tough day.

We left the cabin at 8am and climbed up to where we crossed the border into Switzerland, where the rest of the trip would be.

Grant is standing in front of France, and below I’m in front of Switzerland right on the border marker.

We walked along a high route and eventually saw a huge glacier in the distance.

We walked further and eventually all the way down to the river to cross a bridge which brought us right to the Buvette du Glacier du Trient, a restaurant on the river.

Neither Grant or I speak or read Fench, and we ordered what we thought was going to a baguette type of sandwich with ham and cheese. We actually ended up getting this cheese plate.

I like cheese, don’t get me wrong, but theis was WAY more cheese than we were expecting, and definitely not what you want right before a steep, long climb on a hot day. 😅

Unfortunately it was quite expensive and we didn’t have any other food, so we scraped away cheese and ate what bread and ham we could find underneath.

We began the long climb.

We got a view of the glacier from another angle.

It was a hot day and a steep climb, so we took a few breaks.

There were beutiful views the entire way, which helped.

Once we got near the top of the Fenêtre d’Arpette, right before the steepest part of the climb, Grant and I both ran out of water. We still had a long way to go, so it was not ideal. (After about 3 hours we did eventually find a natural spring where we could get water.)

We finally made it to the top!! There were a few HUGE crows that were flying around, and you could hear them flying around because their wings were so large.

On the other side we could see that we had a boulder field to navigate down.

Fun Story!

As I was hiking down the boulder field I found a phone! Right as I found it I saw two men and asked if they were looking for a phone.

They said no, but that they had run across a Canadian woman who had lost her phone, so I took a screeshot of the phone number that they had gotten from her.

We continued down the mountain until we made it to a refuge (Relais d’Arpette) 40 minutes from our hotel, and I texted the number. They responded immediately, and when I asked where they were, they were at the same place!! The couple was staying at that refuge where we stopped!

I gave the woman her phone and she was so happy to get it because it had a video of her mom who had recently passed away that wasn’t saved anywhere else.

It’s a miracle that I found the phone at all since there was no set trail, but even better to be able to find its owner. ❤️

After we returned the phone, Grant bought us a celebratory 500ml bottle of wine to drink as we finished the rest of the day.

We finally made it to the lake, right as it was starting to get dark.

We got to the Hotel Splendide right at 8pm (just as they stopped serving dinner). Luckily they let us drop our bags and hurry down for dinner. We weren’t showered, but it was an incredible 3 course dinner with a lovely dessert that we ate every bite of.