Le Châble to Cabane Mont Fort



The elevation gain from Le Châble to Cabane Mont Fort is 5000 ft - a huge climb! So we decided to take the cable car part of the way up the mountain as we knew, that after today, we have two of the hardest days of hiking ahead of us.

Tom decided to take advantage of a great opportunity to see his son Patrick for a few days, who has been working in Paris for the summer. So he rode the cable car up with us to send us off before taking a train to meet Patrick in Geneva. He will meet up with us in Arolla. 

It is another beautiful day and we were refreshed by a day’s rest. 



The hike to Cabane Mont Fort after the cable car ride up is relatively easy and we had spectacular views of Mont Blanc.









Almost all of the huts we’ve visited involve a final ascent up to them - a last push!


Once you arrive at the hut, you take your boots off and store them on a boot shelf. We then went to our bunk room - the five of us were in a room by ourselves which was nice as some of the space in mountain huts is large dormitory rooms for many people. 


We then had our lunch outside relaxing in the beautiful weather while strategizing our next two days - the two most difficult stages. The staff at the hut told us the weather would be changing with a potential storm settling in the next two days. Knowing the hike ahead of us, I (Betsy) had to work really hard at not letting anxiety about the potential weather overtake me. Our plan was to get up at 5:30 am and start hiking early so we could be as far along as possible before the storm hit. 


We had fun playing a favorite card game, 10s, in the afternoon - Kris was the winner!



By 9 pm, we all tried to settle in to sleep. There’s no question that sleep is harder due to anticipation of an early alarm and a challenging hike ahead.

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