Friday 25th June 2004 As part of the tour, this would be the easy day in preparation for the Three Passes ordeal. However, this is what happened...

Good buffet breakfast at 7, so away at 0745, in theory unneccesarily early but read on. The town is still expanding, so new building & the upgrading of tracks to roads has produced some confusion in leaving it, although at first, the route marking out of the village is good. This then fades out, so I went North through some new development until the layout of the hills became clear & I was soon on the right path, a gentle track with long zig-zags until the higher chairlift that goes past (West) of Ruinettes. There, it seemed sensible to go up the line of the lift until the signposted path appears, which joins the water track. (This looks confusing on LK50 but is clear enough on the ground). See the diagram photo on the previous page.

Verbier from near Ruinettes Berner Oberland in distance

Why the Col de la Chaux would not go in June 2004 The pass is to the right of the hill in the middle.

This is also well marked & leads to the Cabane de Mont Fort, which appears surprisingly early until one rounds the bend above the cable car station & realises just how far away it is. As one circles the hut to the South before going up, there is a good view up to the Col de la Chaux, which looked very snowy but not beyond my capabilities. However, when I got to the hut & spoke to the guardian, he was adamant that the three passes were a no-go area, as it was as bad on the SE side of the Chaux (which it should not be because that is the sunny side) & that there were two metres of snow on the relatively dangerous Col de Prafleuri. However, in 2005, things were different. Later in my Tour, I met a party who went up to the Prafleuri Hut (on the opposite side of the valley from the pass) from the Grande Dixence dam & they said it looked pretty dreadful, so the guardian was right. I am usually sceptical of over-cautious guardians but this was confirmed by a party of tough girls I later met, who had done the Col de la Chaux with great difficulty & carried on straight back down to the valley. They had Lekis but no ice axe, so (as it was my last day & no snow ahead for me) I lent them mine & hope to see it back! Remember my advice always to take an ice axe.

The Col de la Chaux on Sept 2nd 2005. Hut on left.

I bought a beer (sfr 4) & realised that I had no Plan B but clearly, I had to go down. I went a different way, past the cable car & found a path marked to Le Minset (not on LK50 but it is on LK25) which is down a steep ancient moraine & lead eventually to Lourtier. However, on leaving the woods half-way up, I found English voices dangerously off the path below me & rescued Don (72!) & his sons Keith (with whom I then had a long conversation about VAT) & Paul. At Lourtier, they bought me beer & coffee, then elected to go back to the bus stop. Cannily, I said I would walk (& it is a long way to Le Chable) but thumbed a lift within a few minutes, getting another to Martigny at Le Chable from a Portuguese. There, I could not get a lift in 15 minutes, so hoofed it to the station & bought a ticket (sfr9.20) to Sion & the bus to Arolla, which cost sfr18.40. At Arolla, which is tiny, I booked into the Hotel du Pigne d'Arolla for 2 nights, which is much cheaper than the Verbier & a bit nicer. Dinner was a big piece of pork. Having now been frustrated three times in getting to Arolla, I thought I had better go anyway.