The others wanted an Alpine Start with a wake-up at 5, so I got up with them. This paid off. I left at 0604 & had to drop 367 metres, West, to the badly damaged bridge. Having passed through the Grand Charmotane huts at 2253m, I was almost back at hut height before the sun came on me. Further up, there were big snowbeds wiping out the path but it was fairly straightforward to see where to go, to the right of the moraine.

After 3.5 hours, I was up on the Fenetre at 2797m & a splendid view of Italy over snowfields unfolded. This was better a little below, where a partly frozen lake appeared in the foreground at 2708m. After passing West of the lake, there was considerable trouble with snowfields blanking off the path, necessitating that most unpleasant of exercises, cutting steps below one. This year, one definitely needed an ice-axe. A jeep track starts at Alpe Thoules at 2378m but this makes it difficult to find the path at Balme at 2128m. One has to take a nasty, steep rough path to rejoin an old path just West of Balme to Les Martinets, which then leads to some decent pack-horse track zig-zags to Glassier, 1549m, & shortly, on to the tarmac road which is now above Vaud village (1482m). I carried on along the road wearily to Ollomont (1356m), which did not seem to have any accommodation, so on to Cleiva (1000m), where there was a posh hotel, the Amorous Rabbits (!) but this was full. They rang the very much simpler Hotel Cleiva 200 meters back towards Valpelline village & I had no trouble getting in there. It had taken 9 hours 20 minutes altogether. The shower for my room was in a separate block of showers down the corridor, which was odd. It was very, very hot & my laundry dried while I was showering. The dinner was big: tortellini, escaloppe, cheese & ice cream. No one speaks English or German. It is all Italian & French. All this for L60,000 in 1999.

The following fascinating story was sent to me by Professor Milan Bier:-

"Dear Mr. Baldry: You may be interested to know that your hike Mauvoisin to Breuil over the Fenetre de Durand was our way to escape from Italy to Switzerland in the fateful days of September 1944.
A brief refresher: The brave Vittorio Emanuele, King of Italy, imprisoned Mussolini on a hill-top, but continued his half-hearted war against the invading Americans, stuck below Naples in Monte Cassino. Hitler did not like this a bit and ordered his army, already dispersed throughout Italy, to take over.
At that time we were ‘interned’ in Asti, as Jewish Yugoslavs. Both father and I had very pleasant jobs, dad buying wine for a local wine merchant, signor Pistone, and I being the girl-Friday for Edoardo Gerbi, a quite remarkable violinist turned seed-merchant. Of course, not much work was being done, overwhelmed by the daily events. About 9 AM, a very loud noise came from one end of the city – obvious signal that a German army corps was moving in. Without losing any time, dad and I got on our bicycles, picked up mom on her own and cycled out of Asti in the opposite direction, vaguely towards Turin and the Alps, with Swit zerland on our mind.
We abandoned our bicycles at the next little village, where we boarded a train for Turin. No tickets, of course, and the overloaded train slowed down on the outskirts of Turin, to let everybody jump off. An empty train thus entered the Turin station, into the arms of the waiting German army.
We eventually made it through bombed out Turin to busses heading to Val d’Aosta, the valley on the Italian side of the imposing Alps. There, we bummed for a few days from village to village, trying to find a passage into Switzerland, but were discouraged with reports that the Swiss army was turning back all refugees on the border, not allowing anybody in.
After a few days, though a local priest dad made a contact with a group of Italian army officers, who deserted their border posts, turning into civilians and waiting for the arrival of the German occupying forces.
The commanding officer, whatever his rank or name, said no problem: the Swiss Army at the border is well provided with everything except that they do not have any wine allocation. He suggested loading an army mule with 6 bottles of Chianti wine, the famous straw-wrapped kind, and taking it to the Swiss. His troop provided also a second mule, so both, father and mother rode majestically, while the rest of us, trod along to the arduous pass, Col de la Fenetre (Window Pass), in the massif of Monte Cervino, better known by its Swiss name, Matterhorn.
Indeed, we started the trek in total darkness, to avoid any possible German patrol, and reached the border about noon-time. We were cordially received by the Swiss border guard, right on the top of the pass. They were glad to accept the wine and reciprocated with hot chocolate drinks. Eventually we were marched to the first Swiss village on the other side that we reached late in the evening. This having been the first sun-lit day after a week of rain, our gang was growing in number as we were reaching the pass – probably about a hundred in total. But only my parents and I, as well as two young brothers, Italian students, chose to cross, the rest returning to their hiding dens. Most memorable, for sure, we bribed the Swiss Army, a rather unprecedented event in the Swiss military history! The Swiss army then escorted us to a transient camp in Lausanne, from where I was sent to the Swiss working camp in Les Enfers, Berner Jura, but this is an another story.

There is a dull road walk until just below Oyace, where I picked up the old pack-horse track, which cuts corners off the road all the way to Close at 1457m & almost half the height done. Oyace has a prominent but simple castle looking down the valley. But after Chentre, there is no escaping the road & I was grateful that a Telecom Italia insisted on giving me a lift to the dam at the end of the valley & 1950m, thus saving 4.5 miles of drear & a couple of hours. It was very hot & another three miles walk past the Lago di Place Moulin to Prarayer, where I arrived at about 1300. A very posh hut &, after I found out how to get it, how water in the showers, which I needed, as I had had an attack of the shivers. A seven strong (in every sense) English group from the Dartmoor Mountain Rescue arrived, which was delightful. The leader was also 56 & the oldest guy, 63. they had booked in for 3 days & into a series of huts for a 17 day trip altogether. 5 blokes & two girls who had left their husbands behind. All bloody hard. I had useful information for them, some from the 1975 trip. Dinner, for which we rearranged the tables, was soup, spaghetti, tuna paté with fetta cheese & salad & chocolate mousse for pud. I was the only one in the basement, where it was rather cold & was feeling rather grim. I slept in my gear plus my wooly.