La Fouly to Champex Lac

11 Sept – La Fouly (1600 meters or 5250 feet) to Champex Lac (1470 meters or 4822 feet) : 16.26 km

We bought sandwiches for lunch at the one and only local Super Marche in La Foully – not bad at all.

Today’s trail has mostly gone through woody areas and small farm villages. All day is spent more or less parallel to the road though you are high above it. Nice countryside and forest views. Not too many mountain views today and no passes to cross.

The first section of the trail was almost flat following a wide forest road. Some sections of the trail had a very steep drop off – one photo shows Ferda on part of the trail where a chain was available to hold on to. In dry weather it wasn’t needed but if raining it would have been nice.

Then asphalt narrow winding streets through several tiny, pretty Swiss villages. We sat down on a bench and ate our lunch in one of those. Doesn’t seem like many people work – the owners are either retired or wealthy.

Eventually we came to woodlands and started to ascend modestly. On one section of the trail the local mushroom society had placed information signs around and various mushroom and wildlife figures were carved in tree trunks. Quite a work! It made our hike quite interesting. There is one picture of Ferda petting a carved goat and another of me.

Lac Champex is a beautiful, picturesque little place on a glacial lake and surrounded by forest. 

 We booked a private room in a house through Airbnb. (www.airbnb.com/rooms/13929555). For a small room just big enough for a double bed with shared facilities the charge was 93 Euros. Half board was another 40 Euros each. The food was good but not like that. The view out over the lake was great though. 

One other guest was a French kid (maybe 30) who was going around the mountain in 3 days. He had to make three more stages the next day and try to catch the evening train back to Paris. That is another 45 to 50 km day for him!

We saw one red squirrel today – wildlife is almost non-existent.