Walkers Haute Route: Day 1

Day 1: Chamonix- Les Praz de Chamonix – Le Lavancher - Argentiere

We flew out of Denver on Sept 1^st at around 10:30am with a layover in Newark, New Jersey before continuing our travels with an 8 hour uneventful flight to Geneva (read: the movies sucked, so I slept most of it), arriving at around 8am on Sept 2^nd. We scooted through Customs with barely a glance at our passports and no stamp, to Brian’s dismay. However, to our delight were able to catch an earlier bus, and by bus I mean eight passenger sketchy van, to Chamonix, France as the earlier bus was booked up when I originally made the reservation. But two people didn’t show up. Suckers!

The other 6 passengers on the van happened to all be Americans – 6 of only 8 Americans we would meet on the entire trip. They happened to be backpackers as well, their itinerary being the much more popular Tour de Mont Blanc, which is a 10 day Circuit around, you guessed it, Mont Blanc. This was actually our original plan when we bought our plane tickets for the trip. However, somewhere along the way during the planning process I discovered the Walker’s Haute Route. It’s a similar trek, however, a little longer, a little more scenic, a little less touristy, a little more rural, and much more demanding. 14 beautiful trekking days, which I would condense to a demanding 10, across Switzerland in the Swiss Alps (the first couple being in France) ending in Zermatt, with a stunning view of the Matterhorn. Sign me up!

Upon arriving in Chamonix around 1pm, our van companions were surprised to find we’d be starting our trek that day. “Aren’t you tired from the trip?” It was approx 2am Denver time, I suppose. “Well, yes, but we don’t have time to be tired.” That was pretty much our trek motto. Vacation time is limited, what can I say.

However, our itinerary for the day was only to hike 2 hours to the town of Argentiere, where we would be staying for the night. So we had some time to hang out in Chamonix. 

Chamonix is known as the “mountaineering centre of the world.” It was a nice, cute French town, albeit a bit touristy for me, nestled in surrounding mountains on all sides with a beautiful view of Mont Blanc. Chamonix is basically what Queenstown is to the South Island of New Zealand. It was such a gorgeous day - if we had time, it might have been nice to go paragliding, as we saw plenty of it that afternoon, but that was not in the agenda.  So we had lunch at a nice café, took a quick look around town and snapped some pictures, and were off. Time to hike the Alps and immerse ourselves in rural Swiss life!

The trail from Chamonix to Argentiere was somewhat of a welcomed prelude to the trip. It began as a valley walk through the towns of Les Praz de Chamonix and Le Lavancher before climbing the mountainside and descending into Argentiere. 

I couldn’t get over how walker friendly the rural side of France/Switzerland is. I would quickly find out you can walk from village to village to village through the Alps for days, weeks, and even months. 

And, oh wait, that’s exactly what we were planning on doing. Well, for 10 days at least.

We arrived in Argentiere and consulted “the bible,” as to where to stay. This bible is the book titled “Chamonix to Zermatt,” by Kev Reynolds, with route guidance and suggested itineraries and places to stay along the way. Besides having the book, this trip we were winging it. I did not book any hostels as I was unsure what our itinerary would be each day and I didn’t want to limit us, except that I knew we needed to arrive in Zermatt on the 11^th. 

I was also confident that this route was still somewhat yet to be discovered being overshadowed by the overrated Tour of Mont Blanc, and we were going at the tail end of the season as well, so I figured we wouldn’t have much problem with accommodations. Luckily, this ended up being the case.

We checked into Gite d'etape Le Belvedere – there may have been 10 others backpackers in the whole place. Luckily, we were able to get, and more importantly afford, our own room that night – one of the few nights on the whole trip. Only $20 Euros per person for our own room, not bad. So we took off our packs, wandered around the village, grabbed some coffee at the only coffee shop in town, and had idle conversation with a few of the other European hikers, none of who were doing the same route as we were. And then we called it an early night around 8:30pm. We have a big day tomorrow.