Thursday 24th June 2004 Re-started the tour from Sembrancher, reached by Easyjet, Luton-Geneva, train to Martigny & little train to Sembrancher. Diary follows...

Up in more time than I theoretically needed & fortunately, caught the earlier 0732 train (£10.40 as too early for my Crumbly Card - 'old' people get free fares in London), as this was delayed. I checked in, had an all-day breakfast (£7.64) & bought a Guardian but the security people would not let me take my umbrella into the 'plane & I had to queue all over again to check it in & put it in 'outsize baggage'. The consequences were predictable, especially as the 'plane was late owing to a no-show, who's baggage had to be unloaded. This meant that I had no time to await my brolly at Geneva if it was going to catch my train & in fact, I had to negotiate my way up the ticket queue, which resulted in my catching the 1409 (sfr 50.20) with 20 seconds to spare. At Martigny, the trains do not ackle, so I had to wait around in the hot sun for 53 minutes for the Sembrancher train & did not start walking until 1659.

Sembrancher is off to the left. the 'V' is Verbier. The Cabane de Mont Fort (next day, nextpage) is off to the right

A bit clearer here. The arrow marks the Mont Fort Hut & V = Verbier.

Verbier 'Station' in the evening

The route is out of town, left on the Volleges road. Take the second field path & after this joins the later one at a bridge, cross the bridge & take the next footpath on the left & follow partly through woods to the Verbier road. Up & round the first bend, a footpath soon appears on the left, which goes up to Verbier but I was rescued (it was now 1815) by a lovely old lady insisting I take a lift (as it was 7.5km by road but clearly, much less by the path) which it would have been churlish to refuse.There were only 2 hotels open in Verbier &, rather than drop back to the 'village', I stayed in the Hotel de Verbier next to the Tourist Office & which is expensive at sfr120 (+2.20 for the telephone). After cleaning up, I went to the Café Pergola for a calzone, which was superb & sfr24.20 with beer & tip. Next day, I walked up to the Mont Fort Hut. To walk from Sembrancher to the hut is quite a feasible day's walk. However, in 2004, there was so much snow on the Three Passes that I abandoned this stage & picked up the trail further to the East, eventually completing the stages from The Grand Dixence Dam to St. Luc & joining the stages done in previous years to Zermatt.

On Friday 2nd September 2005, I took the train from Geneva to Martigny & Le Chable, from where, I walked in the heat round the first road bend, where I had been picked up last year, to the old pack-horse track up to Verbier-Village. Near the top, there is development going on, so one has to move left a bit to pick up the track again. This come out a couple of hairpins before Verbier 'proper' It took 1 hour, 55 minutes to get to my beer point in the main square. Then, having walked the next bit last year, I took the gondola to Less Ruinettes & walked from there to the Mont Fort Hut, essentially, a lazy day. See the next page.