One of the beauty of hiking the TMB is you meet all kinds of people from all over the world. Faces that you see on the first day may show up again on the fourth day. You have a short conversation and you move on. You share stories about the trail, where they come from, the companies that they signed up with or are they hiking on their own. The young folks tend to hike on their own, using books and social media information to guide their. Generally, the older folks are either following a guided tour or self-guided tour. Those younger prefer to either camp or stay in huts while the older ones stay in nice 3-star hotels. But on the TMB itself everyone is equal. Everyone takes the same steps, climb up the same mountains and descent to the same villages.
We left les Chapieux after a hearty breakfast; not fancy but adequate. It was an fairly easy walk to La Ville des Glaciers for the first hour. Then we started to climb a little and could see Refuge des Mottets, a nice-looking complex of 4 or 5 buildings including dormitories and restaurants. There were also many cows here to distract us and we enjoyed saying hello to them. They just stared at us as if we were crazy.
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| Hiking towards La Ville des Glaciers |
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| Moo Moo |
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| One of the streams fed by glaciers |
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| Typical wooden bridge crossing streams |
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| Looking back towards les Chapieux |
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| Low hanging clouds over the mountains |
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| Refuge des Mottets |
Soon the climb becomes steeper as we head for the Col de la Seigne. At the top of the col is where the French/Italian border is. The climb is not as bad as the day before but after 3 days of hiking up and down, we are pretty tired. Eventually we got up there and started to descent into Italy. About 30 minutes after crossing the border we spotted a nice-looking new building in the middle of nowhere. It is an Information building called La Casermetta. We went in there to use the toilets and warmed ourselves up for about 15 minutes.
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| Climbing towards Col de Seigne |
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| La Casermetta, an Information office across the border into Italy |
We are now in our last section of the days' hike to Rifugio Elisabetta. Notice that here in Italy it's called a Rifugio, while in France it's called a Refuge. These are mountain huts with minimal amenities and dormitory style beds. Some may have a few private rooms but mostly the beds are side by side, to squeeze as many people as possible into whatever space there is in the building. After almost an hour we are at the bottom of the Rifugio. We ran into a couple of people we met on the second day. Sadly, there was no more room for them at the hut. They have to walk about 2 hours to take a bus to Courmayeur and spend the night there.
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| View of glacier from balcony of Rifugio Elisabetta |
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| View of Rifugio Elisabetta and mountains behind it |
Rifugio Elisabetta overhangs the side of some of the most beautiful mountains. It is a big hut, probably accommodating about 50 people. It looks new. The balcony and the dining room are beautifully constructed. I tried to get a private room but we were too late. So we had to sleep in a tri-level rows of beds. Each person has enough space the side of a twin bed. They provide you with a pillow and blanket but you are advised to bring your own pillow case and sheets. You never know who had used the blanket and pillow. Some of the hikers are not the most hygienic people in the world. There are common showers and toilets. To take a hot water shower you have to pay €2 for a token to get hot water. When I took my shower, there was no hot-water. So I had to use a wash cloth and wipe myself.
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| A close-up view of Rifugio Elisabetta |
We were assigned to 2 bed spaces in the middle row of the tri-level bed. I have a tendency to go to the toilet in the middle of the night. To do so I have to go to the rear of the bed, climb over some backpacks, walk down some metal ladders and find my way to the toilet. I did that several times that night because I couldn't sleep. Bottom-line is I hardly slept that night. Which is good because if I had fallen asleep I'd have been snoring very loudly and woke up a few people.
Dinner was included in the hut. We had margherita pizza (basically a few pieces of tomato, onions and cheese on a piece of toast) for appetizer, risotto for pasta and pork for entree. Breakfast was not any better. Can't expect much from a place that is so remote. We were lucky to have been fed. The staff was great. They tried their best but with so many guests you can't expect them to babysit everyone. I was glad to be on the way in the morning.
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| View from the outdoor balcony |
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| Risotto, part of dinner. |
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