- \n
- 7 hours (Kev time)<\/strong><\/li>\n
- 6 miles<\/strong><\/li>\n
- gain 218 m, lose 554 m<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Our original plan was to take a bus to La Sage or Villa, hike up to the Barrage de Moiry and then walk down into Grimentz for the night, expecting to take the bus back up to the barrage the next day – I didn’t want to cover the same ground twice, so the bus seemed like a nice option.\u00a0 You can also stay at a refuge at the Barrage, but we’re all about comfort.\u00a0 We found out later that our British friends had planned to stay at that hut, but it was full.\u00a0 Our friends ended up having to hike a lot further up to a more remote refuge (actually running out of water on the way), so it may be wise to make reservations ahead of time.<\/p>\n
In order to give Barry’s feet a break – and to muster the energy to complete our trip, which had turned out to be more challenging than we had anticipated – we took a postbus<\/a> from Arolla to Sion, a train to Sierre, and then another postbus from Sierre to Grimentz.<\/p>\n
It was an enjoyable break, and we came to appreciate the amount of vertical ground we had been covering and the geography of the region beyond the mountains themselves.\u00a0 It was weird (and wonderful) to cover so many miles so quickly!<\/p>\n
Here is the journal entry for today:<\/p>\n
I can’t say enough about Hotel Mont Collon!\u00a0 Yes, there were very few guests there, but the owner went out of her way to help us.\u00a0 We had a great petit dejeuner – typical, but plentiful.\u00a0 The owner investigated travel info to get us from Arolla to Grimentz and printed it out for us.\u00a0 Barry asked about Internet access and a computer, and she offered up her laptop, all while preparing the hotel for a conference of 85 people (which turned out to be PhD graduate students in environmental studies offering presentations of their theses, and going for hikes in the mountains – pretty cool!).<\/p>\n
Our first leg was a bus from Arolla to Sion.\u00a0 We actually rode past Ann and Joe (a couple from Australia whom we’d met at Mont Fort) as we neared Les Haudres.\u00a0 It was crazy taking the bus up and down very narrow mountain roads with tight switchbacks and blind curves.\u00a0 It was also great NOT TO BE WALKING.\u00a0 It appears that the switchbacks are just big enough for the postbus to fit around – the driver goes right up to the rail before cranking the wheel to make the turn.\u00a0 As a bus, we always win the war when bus encounters car coming towards us and there is only width for one vehicle.\u00a0 Many a car had to back its way down to a spot with enough shoulder to pull off and let us through.<\/p>\n
- 6 miles<\/strong><\/li>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.bktrent.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/grimentz-bus-view1.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.bktrent.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/grimentz-bus-view2.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.bktrent.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/grimentz-sion.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.bktrent.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/grimentz-hotel-alpina-in-grimentz.jpg\")
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"