Day 7: Refuge les Ecoulies and Arrolla

We woke up to less than an inch of snow. Not a big deal but it was very pretty … and cold! The door to the bathroom, outside the refuge, was frozen shut! Today’s hike was very exciting, and we really enjoyed having the trail to ourselves most of the way. We left at 8:45 and walked along the Lac Dixence. We decided to hike by the Cabane de Dix and I’m glad we did. It’s in an amazing setting, surrounded by peaks and glaciers. It would be an awesome place to stay the night.

But we continued on and walked across a glacier! This was one of the highlights of the trip so far. We were on the glacier before we realized it. We both thought we were still on a lateral moraine, but looked down and realized the small rocks and dirt were actually frozen together. If you brushed the top layer of rocks aside you saw nothing but clear ice below! Once we got to the main glacier, it was obvious. Under the dusting of snow, it was just clear. Here and there little streams coursed down the ice and looked like them-park water slides (Chris even tried sliding down a little slope on the glacier). It was very beautiful. The streams were the clearest things you’ve ever seen. I got some water from one and it was refreshing, and also had an interesting mineral flavor. It was also interesting being at the edge of a glacier. You could see how the ice in contact with rocks would melt first, so if there were only very small rocks you’d see little spires of ice between them.

After probably about an hour, we left the glacier and headed up the Col de Chevres. I guess we left the trail because we ended up scrambling up some super-steep, sketchy stuff. It reminded me of some of our Alaska hiking. You can’t actually hike up the Col de Chevres – instead there are four 10-15 ft. ladders linked together scaling a steep cliff! I was very relieved and a little shaky at the top!

This was when we started to run into all the other hikers. It was a nice descent into Arolla. As we talked to people, we learned that our choice to not stay at the Cabane de Prafluerie was a good one. It was crowded and only had 2 bathrooms and no cooking facilities. No one sounded like they enjoyed it, plus the Col de Roux was very icy in the early morning.

We’ve learned that the Swiss seem to be super hikers. I think you have to be pretty hardcore to climb any of these mountains. This point was further driven home when we arrived in Arolla and a 25 km race was ending that went from 1800 m (5900 ft) to 3000 m (9800 ft) and back to 2000 m (6500 ft). The winner did it in 2:15! Arolla was nice but crowded, especially with the “trek” in town. Luckily we found a room and dinner from some folks selling food out of their garage. We had a refreshing beer with dinner and then polished off an entire bottle of wine! A Goron from Cab. de la Tsa – which actually is a cabin you can stay at perched above Arolla. The funniest part of the day was listening to all the drunk racers and festival-goers outside our hostel. They were singing in French along with an accordion – funny how drunk people sound the same in any language.

Cabane de Dix (get your mind out of the gutter, "dix" means ten in French!):

We were hoping to start the 2009 Georgia season right, oh well:

Glaciers and ice outside of Arolla: