Ensō : A Walk around Mont Blanc --- Day 3 of 9

Ensō: Day 3

Although sheltered from the weather, I quickly discovered that sleeping inside with 20 other people is not as appealing as being the only one for miles around in the great outdoors. The air quality is also a bit, well, different. Alas, everyone seems to get an early start and by 730am there was only two others and myself. I chose to cook breakfast that morning, and had potatoes, part of a sandwich, an apple, and some peanut butter. The view from where I ate was great, mountains in the distance seemed to be slowly shedding their morning blankets and the sky looked rather welcoming, all things considered. I chatted with the other two stragglers for a bit, both in London striving for PhDs in Earth Science, both of them insisted it would rain today despite my optimism in pointing toward the open sky. We briefly discussed fracking and earthquakes, and then I headed out toward the small city (and one of if not the biggest city I would pass through on the trek, ~2500 people) which was tucked in the valley below, Courmayeur. 

The trail began skirting the side of a hill, with mountains visible in every direction.



I soon was able to see Courmayeur, houses sprouting up like the trees surrounding me. I paused on a rock, and imagined that by the end of the day, I would have walked through those streets... I wondered what awaited me.



From here, a quick left turn placed me in the middle of a forest. The environment has changed completely from the rolling hills and glacier falls in the two days passed. Here, the fog creeps through the trees, wispily weaving around the branches, giving the forest a mystical feel.



After descending endlessly for some time, I exchange bonjourno's with the first people of the day coming up the hill. A few rocks doubled as a beautiful natural bench, and I took that as a sign that I should take a break and grok the area for a bit. I sit back and take deep breathes with the trees around me, and in doing this, I feel renewed. 

My pace has quickened and I come across a crossroads: follow the path where some people had walked up from, or dart to the left into the unknown. My guidebook does not mention this and there are no helpful way markers. I lay back on a rock for a moment gazing upward toward the clouds, and after going through both decisions in my mind several times without acting, I reminiscence about some quotes and experiences about the path least travelled and the thrill of the unknown. I go left.

Shortly after this decision, I come across bushes containing two red berries which are paired together. Last night, Michella had talked about how she was picking raspberries the whole way up the hill. I think it is safe to say that these were to which she was referring. Even with another trying them, I recalled a survival protocol which is supposed to elapse 24 hours, in which you would first touch the item (the berry in this case) to your skin and wait quite a while, then break it open and repeat, then touch to your lips, then taste and spit, then taste and hold it in your mouth, then finally, ingest some. All of these involve long waiting periods between each step to determine if your body reacts to the substance in a negative manner. I took a shortcut route which probably was no better than just eating it, but I briefly touched it, nothing happened, briefly tasted it, it tasted bitter. Did it again, bitter. This resulted in me spitting it out and washing my mouth out with some water. Maybe the berries just weren't ripe, in any case, they weren't for me. And since I'm still alive and all, I can say this method has a 100% success rate.

Any ideas what they might be?

The forest path keeps winding in and out like the roots underfoot until finally opening up to a small plateau containing perhaps six quaint houses which certainly were occupied.

There was another intersection, and a bench. I sat down for a bit, flipped a coin, and went right. Soon enough I met back with the trail just before sets of artificially structured rocks gave way to a series of waterfalls. I stopped here for lunch, and to take some photographs.

—

Continuing downward into the valley, one first must pass through the small town of Villiar, whose charm is undeniable. Curiosity walked with me on this road, as I saw a man simply sitting on a fence holding a chess board with 10 pieces on it. I walked by him at first, exchanging greetings, but as I said, curiosity got the best of me; I retreated back and spoke with him. He said that he is here as part of a variation of a scavenger hunt for groups who are here for a camp. I asked him what this task was all about. The board is mirrored horizontally, with three Pawns in a line and the King behind them in the corner. The Rook is off to the side. The question is: who will win? I looked at the board, and after going through the situations with him a few times, I determined it depends on who goes first. He said it doesn't matter who goes first, but the white will always win, but then I showed him how if I were black and I went first, I could win. After some back and forth, he chuckled in agreement and said they must have given him the wrong answer. We exchanged smiles and I headed on my way. 

I came to the next station, where a girl was holding a large cylinder of rice. She didn't speak much English, but enough to let me know that I had to guess the number of rice grains within. I quickly (and probably very inaccurately) made a rough count of the grains in the diameter, and then the vertical axis. 19 x 40 I surmised. Multiplying them gave me 760, which I quickly spit out. She laughed, said most people guess under 1000, and showed me a piece of paper that had something like ~3546 written on it. I also laughed, and recognized how badly I guessed. Saying goodbye and beginning to walk again I immediately realized I forgot to multiply my number by π! The good ol' 3.1415… Which after doing so gave me something like 2387 (I remember that this also took way more time than usual to multiply in my head). Still very off, but at least a little more respectable. 

One more station involved cups and water, and I was excited to try it, but the guy running it did not speak any English. I tried conveying my desires to play the game in English, Spanish, and German (the language here is Italian, though French would have worked too I would guess), but it was to no avail. We both gave up, chuckled, and I continued walking toward the large mountains that were laid out in front of me.



Soon enough I reached the small city of Courmayeur, small by normal standards, but extraordinarily large with respect to the surrounding area. The first thing I see is a church on the left, and Le Societe des Guides on the right. I go toward Le Societe des Guides and see that they have a weather posting for the next few days and then a rough extended outlook. Importantly, I saw that there was only a minimal chance of rain for today, and it would be a higher chance as your elevation increased. Tomorrow was said to be sunny, and the next few days did not look all too bad either. This gave me a great feeling considering the 10-day thunderstorm outlook that I originally was faced with. I then wandered inside and looked at some optional trips you could organize here such as glacier walking, rock climbing, or summiting Mont Blanc itself. I daydreamed of doing this, and one day, I believe I will. Alas, now was not the time for this and my mind returned to a problem I had on my hands… my water tube from my water pouch had formed small black spider looking bacteria or dirt clumps. This is not good.

Thirsty, I hoped to quickly find a tube cleaner in this city as there were more adventure and sports stores than anything else. I went into the very first one I saw, and he said although he doesn't have a cleaner, he has a new bag that I could purchase. I kept this in mind, but the new pouch was smaller and I could not imagine downsizing on my water. I kept walking, and soon found myself getting gelato. A bit of a detour, but I am so glad that this happened. Even though I had only been walking for 3 days now, the treat was delicious.



Bouncing around store after store, I started to become discouraged, and went back to the original store to take yet another look at the pouch he was selling, which was much cheaper than any of the other stores. After looking at it, I confirmed that there was no way that this volume would be sufficient. He then had a sudden realization that I may try the local 'handy shop' or hardware store. I took his advice and although they did have cleaning type tools, none were small enough to fit in the tube of my water pouch. I debated what to do, briefly I considered that I must simply filter all my water from now on, but then decided to check one more humble store that I looked in but did not inquire as the man was busy with customers. Amazingly, he had one cleaner left. It was cheaper than purchasing a whole new pouch by far, and after giving the tube a few run-throughs, it looked good as new! I was very pleased, but then in looking at the time, ready to get going again. 

—

I had quite a distance left to keep on the pace I had set, and the mountains ahead foreboded me of uphill walking. There was a faster option available, one could take a bus or a chair-lift to certain destinations on the way. And truth be told, I did look at the chair-lift for a moment, but then decided I am here to walk, and in the end, it is not so much about the destination...  I think this single decision helped shape the rest of my walk.

But first I had to get to the mountain. I weaved my way through small streets which could certainly not be accessed by car, and knowing that I had to go to the right to get to the mountain, I darted into the next opening I saw of equal size. As I began to walk down this vein, a dog started to bark at me, and I noticed that the walkway pooled into what looks like a driveway... an old woman stood at the door looking at me with a puzzled look on her face. And that's when I realized I had walked to someone's house! I give my apologies, we chuckle, I backtrack and then find the next right... soon enough I see the climb that is before me.

Heading steeply uphill, I began the ascent of well over 1000m. Switchback after switchback zigzagged me up the forest covered mountain. Occasionally, there were more direct routes which crossed over the switchbacks, they were of course steeper, but also more rewarding. After a short time of this repetition, I decided that since I could see the chair lift destination in the distance, I could perhaps just climb straight there, straight up the mountain. This thought also led to me discovering how great these trekking poles really were.

I started at once embarking directly up. Taking carefully placed steps coupled with driving my trekking poles into the dirt like two anchors on which I could pull my body higher and higher. This ensued for the next 40 minutes, and almost half an hour quicker than depicted I found myself at the next check point. This experience flooded my mind with ideas of alpinism and mountaineering. I had a brief glimpse of reaching a summit without a trail, and I wanted to see the whole picture! Inspired as I was, I had more walking to do for the time being. 

Soon I had a birds-eye view of Courmayeur

Continuing upward, I passed two Frenchmen who were descending. One said Bon Courage, in place of the typical Bonjour. I was curious about what this meant, and although his English wasn't fluent, he told me that it meant 'to have strong legs' and to 'keep going'. Playing the exchange in my head later (supported by the spelling), I believe it may translate into something like 'to have good courage in the face of difficulty'. An hour or so later, (being my courage was strong) I finished the ascent and arrived at where I had planned to have lunch, refugio Maison Vieille, only a few hours later than originally intended. The Australians had told me to order a panini here, and so I did. I asked about the weather as it seemed some giant clouds were coming in to which the woman working there said it will certainly rain, and that I could camp in the back behind the horses in the trees if I'd like. I thanked her and deeply considered this after finishing my meal, I even walked to the location to check out potential spots. However after a bit of searching, I decided to keep going, as the tube-cleaner-hunt had eaten a large chunk of my day, and I was yearning to see more of the trail.

The clouds above Maison Vieille

The path was again uphill, but now it parted ways with the forest and began roving over a new rolling green landscape with an array of beautiful mountains on the other side of the valley on the right. Glaciers were larger than ever, and even Mont Blanc was up there in the fog, somewhere. The landscape was simply amazing and the large clouds and fog gave it something extra. Walking another 5 kilometers or so, I found a spot on a flat meadow overlooking the valley and onto the panoramic mountain range. I thought, here is where I will sleep.









After setting up the tent, I took some time to grok and drink in the mountains while preparing dinner. I started to film the setting sun which seemed to be kissing the mountain tops while reeds of grass swayed in the foreground, but before I knew it I had fallen asleep.

I awoke with a rush around midnight, remembering that I wanted to stargaze tonight given the clear weather report from Le Societe des Guides. I zipped opened the tent and in stark contrast to the white fog I awoke with after my first night camping, this time the sky was jet black with the milky way seemingly zipping open the night itself; crystallized with pearls of energy peppering the deep still of the darkness. It was breathtaking. I spent some time here, gazing upward after so much of my path today was spent walking upward, and after the second shooting star, I fell asleep.

---

This is the third post of a series of 10 from my thru-trek in August 2015.
Check back within the week for the next post! 
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Thanks for reading,
Eric