Short summary -- lovely balcony trail.
We were not overly impressed with the Refuge du Roc de la Pêche... well, actually it was the worst place that we have stayed at on the trip. Which didn't make it truly awful... accommodation has been excellent in general... but it wasn't very good.
The bunkroom assigned to the six of us did indeed have six beds, but when all were pulled out from their storage places there was hardly room to turn around. We asked if it would be possible for some of us to move to another bunkroom, but were informed that they were all full. However, this was clearly not the case as there were only four groups at dinner... and there were several bunkrooms. The blatant lies continued when we asked if there was a wireless LAN... no, they said, although we subsequently saw on our iPads/iPhones that there was.
Then dinner was so-so (with the appetizer being skimpy and bland, and dessert frankly inedible). Throughout it all the service was a little grumpy -- the general impression we got was that they didn't really want to have anyone staying there overnight. And to top it all off, it wasn't cheap either (for a refuge). So, a place to be avoided. They clearly haven't heard of the power of the Internet... I intend to make some honest and uncomplimentary posts on a few travel sites once I'm back home.
It rained, at times quite hard, during the evening and overnight, and morning arrived cold with fog and drizzle. So, for only the second time since leaving Eygalières on June 19th we broke out the rain gear. Pretty amazing when you think about it. The morning refuge chap told me that it had snowed overnight up at the pass we took yesterday....
We hiked for a couple of hours down roads, tracks, and trails to the town of Pralognan where we bought a few things for lunch (we hadn't felt like trying our luck with picnics from the refuge :-). And then the strenuous part of the day's hike commenced -- with a steep climb up to a rolling balcony trail, followed by a further climb up to a mountain shoulder at over 2000m (Pralognan was around 1599m, if I remember correctly). The drizzle had stopped before Pralognan, so at least we were unencumbered by rain gear during the climbs.
We had lunch at the shoulder then descended, at times steeply, to another balcony path, while enjoying some wonderful views of waterfalls, villages in the valley below, and of course all around the mountains of the Vanoise. In the mid-afternoon came another steep climb of almost 500m that was almost too much for Ioana mica... but only almost: this time she made it up with her pack. And we were in no hurry -- the weather just kept improving.
Midway through the final descent we came across Lidia, sunning herself by the trail. She had arrived in the early afternoon, and decided that, since she needed some training (never too late to start ;-), she would walk in our direction. She even had her full pack with her! Hugs and kisses ensued and we were all presented with wildflowers before continuing on down to the refuge, where we arrived shortly after 6PM (we didn't hurry today :-). Fortunately the refuge seems far nicer than the previous night!
Sent from my iPad
