Trient to Col des Montets and to Tre le Champ

Day 13 - Trient (1290 meters or 4234 feet) to Col des Montets (1465 meters or 4800 feet) and to Tre le Champ, France : 14.8 km

Trient is picturesque little village with the church as the center point. The area receives plenty of rain – you see moss growing on all roofs.

Starting out we left Trient and walked straight to the end of the neighbor village Le Peuty where the trail and climb started.

We had a long climb and at the top of the pass we reached to Col de Balme (2195 meters or 7200 feet), which is the border between Switzerland and France. 

At the col there is a refuge, Refuge du Col de Balme, where you can get a bite to eat or drink. One nasty old lady was running it, the coffee was lousy and the sandwich hardly had any cheese in it. Later we read that “The Guardian” at the Col de Balme refuge has a reputation of being very grumpy. Nevertheless the views were incredible. 

Farther down the mountain at Col des Posettes there was a restaurant, Alpage de Balme that had great coffee and blueberry pie! There were mountain bikes all over the place. Quite a task to ride a bike up the mountain!

At one place we came upon a guy sitting in a blueberry patch eating as fast as he could pick the berries.

When we reached Col de Montets we learned the bus no longer came that far out of Chamonix. After asking people that wanted to help but had no idea we walked to Tre le Champs and then to Montroc and soon the Chamonix bus came along.

Champex Lac to Trient

Day 12 – Champex Lac (1470 meters or 4822 feet) to Trient (1290 meters or 4234 feet) : 16.76 km

This was a hard day of mountain trail and climbing. 

We started to walk along the lake then on or along the asphalt roads on our way out of town. In the land of the St Bernard the only one we saw was painted on the side of a bus leaving Champex Lac. 

We walked through some pleasant Alpine meadows. Then we started to ascend into the woods. The trail climbs steeply for what we felt like a very long time. Eventually, we finished the climbing and made it to the Alp Bovine. A highlight was the refuge in a dairy farm at the top of one long hill overlooking the valley. 

It was named Refuge and farm Bovine and it lived up to it’s name – cows all around. For some reason they think they need to put a bell on each cow – a big bell with a wide leather collar. The past 3 days we have rarely been where we didn’t hear bong, bong. The cattle breeds are generally different than in the US.

After we left the refuge we had some further ascent with spectacular views and then mostly downhill woodland walk started. 

At one location there was a big block of stone with a good sized tree growing out of it – doubt many roots penetrated that rock. Shortly afterward we saw an old cattle trough made of hollowed out logs.

Finally Trient appeared down below.

As we descended into the village we saw a beautiful pedestrian flyover. People coming down the hill seem to drive a bit like maniacs so it was appreciated.

Just as we arrived at the hotel it began to rain. We had a private room in this hotel/dorm but bathrooms were common. Room was very comfortable and common bathrooms are very clean and spacious. It was a very good stay. (http://www.la-grande-ourse.ch)