Suzanne: I'm never sharing a room again.
Brad: Agreed.
They were snorers! UGH! We both slept just okay and yeah, whatever........ Breakfast was the typical bread, cheese, yogurt, cereal, orange juice, tea/coffee. We packed up and were on the trail at 8am.
We hiked back down the same trail for about 1 1/2 miles, and the skies were clearer today, so we took some more photos of the Cabane and Moiry Glacier........
It was also our coldest morning, so we started with our hats, gloves, and multiple layers (which we shed about half-an-hour into the hike). Of course, the hike was as steep going down as it was going up.....
This was a cool section - we walked along a narrow "ledge" both days........
We think these were the cows that we passed yesterday that were sleeping along the road.........
More views......
The cabane is barely visible on the left side - the second "bump."
Yup - zoom lens!
We were just moving along, now on a stretch of fairly level path until we ran into some cows. Let me clarify - some MEAN cows! More clarification - MEAN AND BIG cows!
Remember the sign we saw yesterday, it said something about cows protecting their calves, well hell yeah they do! At one point we were innocently walking along and cows were all over the path - and one calf was uphill from us and its mother was downhill (pretty far). Now we aren't cow experts, but we figured out the relationship when we tried to keep walking and the mother cow moved FAST towards us moo-ing quite irately. Who knew cows could move so fast! So we were stuck.....for 20-minutes we were trapped - too many cows to go around the cow-ladden path. Finally the mean mother cow communicated to her calf and the calf walked down the hill towards her. Lucky for us, because it was at this time that cows were coming up behind us as well - surrounded! So we rapidly hiked through the cows.
This is them......
The rancher? farmer? (who knows what they're called) lived in this house......damn solitary. Oh, so the Australian guy from dinner last night - Peter the Miner - he was chased by a cow on his way up to the cabane and had to hide behind a rock (and Peter was a tall, broad guy) until the rancher/farmer came out to get the cow to move along. I'm telling ya, they're MEAN!
Of course there were more cows as we continued hiking, but no calves and we were able to walk off-trail to get around them. Seems as if they use the trail signs to scratch their heads.
Last view of Moiry Glacier........
We walked above the Lac de Moiry as we continued to descend a bit....it was really a pleasant walk at this point.
Eventually we worked our way past the lake to some horses - much nicer than the cows.
And once again, the steepness began as we hiked out way up to Col de Sorebois and arrived at 12:50pm. It was getting cooler and we were surprised that we were still feeling the altitude, but then again, we were pretty high (2,847 meters; 9,341 feet).
The col offered more great views - this is the Weisshorn.... (unfortunately the clouds were forming once again.)
About an hour later we arrived at the Sorebois cable car - which we always knew that we would use at this point to get to Zinal as the rest of the hike is super steep and in the trees. (We actually planned our departure day to be sure the cable car was open, as towards the end of the summer it is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays.) Of course, more cows!
On the way down, we met-up with two Dutch guys who were doing some reconnaissance for a hike they plan to do next summer (not the Haute Route) and it was fun chatting with them for about half-an-hour. There's Zinal......way down there!
We took the 2pm cable car.......with our free passes from the cabane!
We walked a bit to our hotel - the Hotel a la Pointe Zinal (which we booked online when we were in Les Hauderes) and it was not all the way at the other end of town 😏
(Yes, Brad hit his head on this very low ceiling a couple of times.)
We were starving at this point, so we scarfed down the rest of our bread, cheese, and chocolate and then went searching for more provisions before the stores closed for the night. We went across the street for sausage and cheese - the owner spoke very little English and as it has been established, we speak very little French, but he was sweet and kind - showing us the pictures on each sausage label so we'd know what it was - super nice. We also got some cheese from him and some bread from nearby bakery where once again, people were patient and kind as we tried to figure out the Swiss francs.
It was back to the hotel room where we took much needed showers and did laundry. We wandered around town - some photos of Zinal........
Then went back to the hotel for dinner - Suzanne had great vegetable pasta and Brad enjoyed a great pizza. We enjoyed some more of the Swiss fendant wines. Over dinner we decided that we'd take the next day off from hiking - we were both pretty sore and tired - and wanted to save ourselves for the last big day - a day that promised some amazing views.
Today’s numbers:
Miles
|
Elevation
change
|
|
Cabane de Moiry to path
|
1.3
|
994
|
Path to Lake
|
2.4
|
285
|
Lake to more
path 😊
|
1.9
|
1,122
|
Path to Col
de Sorebois
|
0.5
|
532
|
Col de
Sorebois to cable car
|
1.4
|
1,387
|
7.5
|
4,320
|
Today's
Wo
Today's Word: Cows.
No comments:
Post a Comment