Hexishtrek Day 3 From Lac de la Case to Chappelle du Abondance €0

I woke up, somewhat disappointingly, without wolves. I had been hoping for a visitor all night, but all was silent. That said, I was unconscious and a wolf could have licked my nose and I wouldn’t have had a clue. I think I can officially announce that the jetlag has been overcome, a truly joyous occasion.

In keeping with my slow first week, I spent some time just lying by the lake in the morning, enjoying the first rays of sunshine as they cleared the mountain tops.

Around 9am I started wandering uphill. When I reached the first ridge I looked back to see what would be the last time at Lake Geneva in the distance, it felt like the Alps had begun in earnest.

Breakfast and imminent wildlife

I still haven’t satisfied my hiker’s hunger. Being very familiar with what that will feel like, I am grateful for this brief period of time where I don’t feel the need to absorb all the calories from the world around me.

As a result, it was 10 in the morning and he hadn’t had breakfast yet. I saw a great place to stop for lunch, overlooking another alpine lake. I took out my cold soaked oats and TVP overnight, added a generous helping of peanut butter and nuts and started eating the creamy goodness which was 800 calories and 50g of protein, a fantastic way to fuel a day of hiking in the Alps.

While I was happily eating, a fellow hiker coming in the opposite direction started chatting with me. The problem was that I spoke French, so it didn’t help. He could literally have been saying run away from the deadly thing in front of me and I would have continued eating.

I explained the problem to him and after recovering from his shock that anyone would be in France and not speak French, he rolled up his sleeves and showed me a tattoo on his arm of a goat-like creature. Then he gestured into the distance. Using all my powers of deduction I decided that there was a good chance that there was a goat-like creature up ahead on the path.

I thanked the man, shoved the rest of the food down my throat, and set off in search of this mythical creature. About fifteen minutes later, I saw an animal that was the spitting image of the Frenchman’s tattoo, and I pretended to be a National Geographic photographer and took some pictures.

I mean, talk about the cutest goat you’ve ever seen, right? Feeling like I had just captured something extraordinary, it was with mixed feelings that I overcame the next hill and found myself surrounded by over 50 of the not-so-rare goat things.

Of course, I took a thousand more photos and hung out with my new friends for about an hour. They seemed genuinely disinterested in me, which might suggest that a hiker or two had passed them on previous occasions.

Bise Refuge

All too soon it was time to move on, and I decided to get off the Hexatrek (not for the first nor the last time) and descend the GR5 to the Bise Shelter.

A typical and magnificent mountain refuge in the middle of nowhere in France. It even had a cheese factory because the French are geniuses.

After a brief stop to paddle a liter of water, I began the steep climb out of the valley in which the shelter was located. It was a difficult climb, the third of the day, and the day had warmed up considerably. Did I mention it’s hot? It’s very, very hot. And I say that as an Australian.

I finally reached the top and was now faced with a massive descent into another valley to the village of La Chappelle du Abondance. At this point I was absolutely devastated and needed a break from the sun that was doing its best to pierce my skull.

On the way I came across some ruins, probably hundreds of years old. The only thing I cared about was that the remaining stones cast some shadow. I sat there for an hour or two, eating lunch, and chatting with my knees about the thousand meters of elevation loss they were about to endure, all in the name of fun.

In the middle of the afternoon I woke up and ran down the hill. I arrived in town and went into the tourist office to see if I could charge my phone. The answer was, of course, yes, so I sat in the cool office for an hour bringing my device to life.

It was time to move on and find a bivy spot to spend the night. That’s when the problems started.

While studying the map at lunch, I had seen the river that ran near the city as a great place to find my home for the night. Unfortunately, the river was very popular with the townspeople for evening walks. Then I found a small path that led from the river to a waterfall. I got to the waterfall and there was no flat ground. When you are exhausted and hot, finding a bivouac is not the best of games. Finally, near the waterfall I found an unmarked trail and followed it to my Shangri-La.

The cowbells coming from the farms below my elevated vantage point lulled me to sleep. Another excellent day at Hexishtrek.

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