Cabane du Mont Fort<\/a> – which is really nestled among the ski slopes of Verbier.\u00a0 Alex (son) would be in heaven here.\u00a0 Mountain bikers take the cable up and ride crazily down the mountain.\u00a0 Paragliders come up and jump their way down.\u00a0 Bell-ringing cows adorn the countryside.\u00a0 It is an amazingly beautiful place.<\/p>\nAs we reached the hut, we encountered some weird, eerie “heads” that started to sing and make noise as we approached.\u00a0 At first we thought it was the wind.\u00a0 The heads were strange and the sounds even stranger.\u00a0 Later we found out that there was a motion sensor that triggered the heads to start singing when someone approached.\u00a0 I have since Googled and found NOTHING explaining this strange mix of art, music and sick humor!<\/p>\n
We are now moved into our private room in le Cabane du Mont Fort; sitting on the patio with a beer and a journal – surrounded by people speaking French and German.<\/p>\n
There is one Kiwi couple (Viv and Nancy) who we’ll be able to talk to at supper.\u00a0 They’ve hiked a lot of places so it will be fun to talk with them.<\/p>\n
Important piece of information: we wondered about the “nylon” ropes that appear to enclose the cows.\u00a0 They looked pretty benign and I questioned the intelligence of the cows….\u00a0 Turns out they ARE electrified.\u00a0 Barry made the discovery as we arrived at the cabane and found ourselves walking past BIG cows (just what is cow etiquette? do you look at them or avoid eye-contact?).\u00a0 We then had to climb under or jump over one of these ribbon ropes.\u00a0 He grabbed it, planning to hold it up and squeeze under it, but got zapped in the process.\u00a0 No wonder it keeps the cows inside!<\/p>\n
We had dinner with the “down under” crowd – the Kiwis and 2 Aussies (Joe and Ann) – all of whom have traveled a lot – they can help us build our “bucket list” (what to do before you kick the bucket).\u00a0 The cowbells will serenade us tonight.<\/p>\n
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In retrospect, the hike from Champex to Le Chable, while offering gorgeous views of green valleys and villages, was kind of like the leg from Champex to Argentiere that we avoided.\u00a0 It follows and crosses roads, and takes you through little villages along the way, but doesn’t have much rugged wilderness appeal.\u00a0 If your time is limited, it might be worth considering taking a bus for that leg and hiking up to Mont Fort from Le Chable or Les Ruinettes – however much vertical you want for that day.\u00a0 On the other hand, the views we were treated to on this day were unique for the trip.\u00a0 And Cindy (who is a professor of history at Northern Arizona University) reported that she spied old Roman potsherds in a freshly-turned field as we approached Le Chable!<\/p>\n
Gorgeous green valley views unique to this leg of the trip
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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.bktrent.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/montfort-more-valley.jpg\")
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Walking through lovely villages on the way to Le Chable<\/strong><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.bktrent.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/montfort-village.jpg\")
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Once you are in the valley, you walk through a village to reach Le Chable – Barry with Marco<\/strong><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.bktrent.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/montfort-walking-to-lechable.jpg\")
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Sidewalk writing on the route of the Tour de France<\/strong><\/p>\nOur favorite phrase: “It’s riding hard (replace with hiking), suffering and beer”
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.bktrent.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/montfort-livestrong.jpg\")
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Sign atop Les Ruinettes<\/strong> – which way from here? (to the left and down the road)<\/strong><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.bktrent.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/montfort-unclear-sign.jpg\")
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The path at Les Ruinettes was not obvious, except by figuring out which direction you had to head.\u00a0 This was one of the rare times when we weren’t sure of the trail.\u00a0 We were actually on a rough gravel road and were able to ask someone driving by (in a 4WD truck) if we were headed in the right direction.\u00a0 They confirmed and assured us that we would eventually see the foot path to the cabane as it rose above the road on the left.\u00a0 We spent a little time watching paragliders taking off down into the valley.\u00a0 What an amazing experience that must be!\u00a0 Though we had timed the 2-somes floating down into Chamonix and figured that for $200, you only got about 15 minutes of air time.\u00a0 The single gliders could stay in the air a lot longer (or chose to since they weren’t charging someone for the ride).<\/p>\n
Paragliders all set and waiting for the right wind
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.bktrent.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/montfort-paragliders.jpg\")
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View of Gran and Petit Combins<\/strong><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.bktrent.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/montfort-gran-and-petit-combins.jpg\")
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Almost there!
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.bktrent.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/montfort-approach.jpg\")
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The Cabane du Mont Fort was our first mountain hut experience.\u00a0 It was not very full during our stay, but we did have the opportunity to meet other travelers.\u00a0 It seemed that the cabane had been remodeled recently (in the last few years).\u00a0 It had numerous small rooms on the second two levels that provided quite a bit of privacy.\u00a0 There were many rooms for 3 (like ours – 2 cots and a mattress), for 4 (2 bunk beds) and also 2 larger, dormitory style rooms with mattresses on the floor.\u00a0 We were on the top floor, and the bathrooms and showers were on the level below us.\u00a0 There is a room on the main level where you can store your boots and trade for indoor shoes (provided by the hut) or change into your own sandals.\u00a0 I think there was a little kitchen area where you could also prepare your own food.<\/p>\n
Cabane du Mont Fort
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.bktrent.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/montfort-cabane.jpg\")
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Lots of cows and bells<\/strong><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.bktrent.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/montfort-cows.jpg\")
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The “talking heads” of Mont Fort (that’s what we dubbed them anyway)
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.bktrent.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/montfort-talking-heads.jpg\")
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Kind of disturbing, eh?<\/strong><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.bktrent.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/montfort-freaky-head.jpg\")
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Great sunset at the end of a day full of the unexpected<\/strong><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.bktrent.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/montfort-sunset.jpg\")
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Day Summary: 5.5 hours (Kev time) 16 miles (much by chair lift\/gondola) gain 1740 m, lose 759 m This was the first time that our day differed markedly from “Kev time” – and we used a bus and a chairlift for the worst of it.\u00a0 We left Champex at around 8 (I think) and arrived … <\/p>\n
Continue reading “August 31: Champex to Mont Fort”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alps"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bktrent.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bktrent.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bktrent.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bktrent.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bktrent.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.bktrent.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":645,"href":"https:\/\/www.bktrent.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48\/revisions\/645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bktrent.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bktrent.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bktrent.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}