If you missed the start of our Tour du Mont Blanc adventure - you can read about:
Day 1 - Chamonix to Refuge La Balme
Day 2 - Refuge La Balme to Refuge des Mottets
Days 3 & 4 - Refuge des Mottets to Courmayeur
Day 5 - Courmayeur to La Peule
DAY 6 - LA PEULE TO RELAIS D’ARPETTE
Not to give too much away before I jump into Day 6, but this was definitely a highlight of the trip for me!
I was shocked at the fact that I actually got a pretty good nights’ sleep in our big dorm room. I did wake up to a frat-boy neighbors snoring at one point, but I put my headphones on and fell back asleep until 6:45 am when I started to do my morning tasks - grabbed our boots and sticks (poles) from the storage shed and ate breakfast (they had yogurt which I was thrilled about).
We got a little bit of a later start, getting ready post-breakfast instead of pre because it wasn’t a high mileage day. We took an alternate route that was recommended by Moon Honey Travelers which you can read about here.
It was scenic, had some glacier views, and rolling hills where I finally forced Soma to record a video of me running and twirling around to The Sound of Music. I also gave him a play by play of the book I had just finished (The Hand That First Held Mine by Maggie O’Farrell) as an experiment to see if it helped me remember the plot - writing this 6 months later I can confidently say the experiment…did not work. I still seem to forget book plots immediately after finishing them.
When we got into the town of La Fouly we stopped for a cappuccino and tiramisu but quickly realized that the bus we were trying to hop on was leaving in 3 minutes. It was a very expensive cappuccino (we were in Switzerland now) so I ran into the shop and had the hardest time communicating that I needed a to-go cup - thankfully two guys jumped in and helped tell the waitress what I needed and we shuffled our way to the bus stop and just made it on.
We took the bus to Issert because I was being stubborn and insisting that we not miss out on hiking any significant elevation, but looking back I definitely wish we would have just switched in Issert and taken the bus all the way to Champex-Lac.
Instead, we got off at Issert and did another hour and a half-ish of climbing through the woods - not at all scenic, until we finally came to the magical town of Champex-Lac. We grabbed a bench, spread out our stuff, and I immediately plunged into the chilly but amazing waters.
It definitely got more crowded throughout the day so I was very glad we got there when we did with our prime bench and grass location where we lounged for 2.5 hours.
I popped over to the supermarket and put together a picnic lunch, with a brewski, and we read and sat in the sun and watched the locals coming down with their inflatable stand up paddle boards and it was just so lovely and picturesque.
It was very hard for me to walk away from the lake but eventually we did have to make our way to our home for night. We did get a litttttttle off course but eventually found our way to a very nice trail winding through a very green, lush, mossy forest and following the very melodious creek.
Our stop for the night was Relais D’Arpette which was definitely one of the larger and more built up/popular places that we stayed but had unreal views to the distant mountains where we would be heading the next day. We were surprised to learn that we had another private room, and this one might have been my favorite. We had a little balcony and the views were so gorgeous.
Dinner at Relais D’Arpette was chili so I had to get the vegetarian version but it was pretty good - this was one of the few that was served as a buffet. We sat with a couple we had met a few other nights along the way which was nice. Then we went back to the room to play 500 Rummy and I of course forced a photo shoot becuase LOOK AT THE VIEWS FROM OUR BED!?
Overall, this day felt like SUCH a treat. We were way more relaxed at Champex-Lac than we had been on our “rest” day in Courmayeur. if you’re going to take a rest day - I would say do it Champex-Lac! And definitely don’t feel like you’re missing anything if you take the bus from La Fouly to Champex-Lac!