In which we have a perfect first day of hiking.
Today dawned bright and sunny, and by the time we set off at 10AM it was already quite warm. The hike being short, only 4.5 hours, and with a great lunch spot about midway, there was no reason to leave earlier, so I had to suppress my martinet instincts. After a short stretch along a road climbing out of Courmayeur the fun began.
First woodland, then high pastures with a myriad flowers and clouds of butterflies. We have heard from a few people that the summer has been awful so far here, so my guess is that the normal flowering time at this height (we spent most of the day walking between 1900m and 2050m) has been delayed vis a vis normal -- at any rate I wasn't expecting to see so many flowers at the end of July this low and this far south.
We had a very satisfactory lunch then followed a balcony trail, with stunning views across to the glaciers and cliffs of the Mont Blanc massif, for a couple of hours in the afternoon to RIfugio Bonatti, our accommodation for the night. Quite a nice place it is too -- we have a four person room with two single beds and two bunk-beds, and clean sheets! The only flaw thus far has been the instructions for the shower, which omitted to mention that if one turns off the shower mid-flow (a standard thing to do to economize on the limited amount of hot water available in a refuge), the token drops... i.e., no more hot water. I found this out about 30 seconds into my shower... and the rest of it was icy cold :-(. As in bye-bye meat & two veg level of cold (thanks to Russ for the image).
And now, to answer the question that I expect that quite a few of you have -- how's my ankle doing? -- the answer is, so far so good. Just a little discomfort while hiking today, and very limited swelling. I think tomorrow morning I'll probably feel fine... but the real test comes in tomorrow's hike: 900m up to a 2925m pass, then 1275m down to our hotel. If the ankle is still fine after that, I'll start to feel pretty optimistic about its chances of holding up for the rest of the month.
We all agreed that we are lucky dudes. A great way to start off a long hike. Now, the weather forecast for the day after tomorrow is a little scary (everything from heavy rain to thunderstorms to snow to, on a few weather sites, just showers)... but we'll cross those snowfields and raging torrents when we get there. For now, life is good.
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