Cabane Mont Fort to Cabane de Prafleuri

When we woke up, the clouds had rolled in and we again heard the stormy weather report for the next few days. Greg had thought through three different options for us to consider - option one was to continue the plan and hike to the next hut. Option two was to start the hike, but if the weather turned bad to turn around and spend another night at Mont Fort. At that point, we could hike back down to the cable car, go back Le Châble, and then take a train to Arolla. Option three was if we made it to Cabane de Prafleuri and the weather worsened, we could stay there an additional night requiring us to skip our layover day in Arolla. I think it made us all feel better to know that we had some options (though we were all really looking forward to our planned layover day in Arolla at a magnificent mountain hotel we had stayed at eight years ago).






One of the things that makes this stage so hard is that there are three “cols” to go over. A col is the “saddle”or lowest point between two mountain peaks. The travel up to the col often involved traversing over huge boulders (bolder fields) and/over scree (small loose stones). 

Miraculously, when we reached the first col, Col Termin (at approximately 8750 ft), the clouds broke open ever so slightly and we were able to take some nice photos. One col down and two to go!

Along the way, when we were climbing in some boulders, one of my new carbon fiber poles got caught and the tip broke. Carbon fiber poles are very light, but not as strong as aluminum poles. Greg broke off the end and put my rubber tip on the end. It worked but doesn’t have the same ability to grip as the spike tip. 








Shortly before we reached the second col, the rain started and we put on our rain gear. Once again, Greg and I didn’t have rain pants (in our lost luggage), but we decided to carry on at that point without fashioning rain pants out of the black garbage bags. 

We were happy to get the second col behind us and decided to carry on versus turning around and going back to Cabane Mont Fort. At one point, there was some lightening, so we huddled beneath a large rock to get ourselves lower. 

After committing to going forward, we just had to keep going knowing that at any time the weather could worsen. Even though we had two cols behind us, the hike to the last col was long, tiring and frankly, miserable. 


At one point, we had to cross a rushing stream without an obvious crossing place - in fact, we spent about 20 minutes tossing some more rocks into the stream to create a more secure crossing point. We debated taking our boots off, but with the cold temps, ruled that out. 

Eventually, we made it across with minimal water in our boots and keep on trekking. 

None of us really took many photos of the last stretch as we were so cold, tired, and anxious to make it to the hut. But the last climb up the final col was the hardest. It went through a large boulder field without an obvious path. This was the time each of us had to dig deep into our reserve and say “we can do this!”

Once we made the final ascent to Cabane de Parfleuri, we celebrated our 10 mile, 3-col hike made in rainy conditions! 

So grateful to have made it safely!