Day 6: Les Hauderes - La Sage – Villa - Col de Torrent – Barrage de Moiry - Col De Sorebois – Zinal
Brian and I got up around 7am and went to the local pastry shop to get some breakfast. Brian and I absolutely loved the little pastry shops that we were able to find in a few of the villages, and we took full advantage of them when we had the chance! After eating some pastries, we put on our rain gear and headed out. This morning was the first day we had any semblance of rain – but it was only a drizzle that lasted for about an hour, and then cleared up the rest of the day. As we were leaving town, I noticed all the small school kids laughing and talking waiting for the bus. It made me think how different these kids were growing up than how I grew up – I don’t think there daily life included movie theaters, or Walmart, or video games. None of these village homes even had dryers for goodness sake! It’s so easy to forget how simply most the world lives, when we’re all too busy being stressed out in our part of the world. Sigh.
We headed up the path the La Sage, which was maybe a town of 15 homes, and then 10 minutes up the path from La Sage was Villa, which was an even smaller town. Soon after that we found ourselves climbing up the mountainside to the Col de Torrent and, as usual, Jeremy caught us rather quickly. I’m not sure how the topic of conversation came up, maybe we were talking about how hot we were under our rain gear and had decided to stop and take it off. But anyway, Jeremy told us not too long ago there was a “naked rambler” on the loose making headlines all over England. Apparently, this guy hikes with nothing but a rutsack on. The police keep catching him and throwing him in jail, but as soon as he gets out, nothing can stop this guy from his repeated “naked ramblings.” I guess everyone gets their kicks a little bit differently.
The climb up the Col de Torrent was unbelievable. As we passed the occasional house up the mountainside, I couldn’t believe people woke up to this view every morning. At one point when we were climbing up to the Col de Torrent, I had fallen behind, which was pretty common. I was definitely a bit slower than the guys. But as they were waiting for me and I was approaching them, they were laughing and looking at me.
“What are you guys laughing at? Are you laughing at me?”
“No, come on. Let’s go,” Brian said. And he was still laughing.
Jeremy hiked on ahead, and Brian let on that Jeremy had thoughtfully told him, “You know, she’s kind of like a pack horse. Strong and steady. You just have to give her a little kick now and again.”
Sigh.
Anyway, we reached the Col in good time, with fantastic views at the top. As we headed back down the other side of the mountain, is started to mist over a bit. But when we reached the Barrage de Moiry, is started to clear up and we took some time to have lunch and admire how blue the water was. It was such a rich blue, it almost looked unreal.
After lunch, as we started up to the Col de Sorebois Jeremy proposed that we play a game. I guess we had just about talked about everything under the sun, and Jeremy was getting a bit bored. Either way, Brian and I agreed. Jeremy proposed that we play a geography game. We would start with the letter O, for example, and Jeremy would have to name any geographic entity such as a place, region, lake, mountain, etc that began with the letter O. And then the next person had to think of a geographic entity that began with the last letter of the entity he just named. For example, if Jeremy said Ottawa, then if I was next, I would have to think of a geographic entity that began with the letter “A.” So the game began.
Well, Brian and I found out rather quickly that we totally suck at geography. Because Jeremy was kicking our butts. I would like to think he had somewhat of an advantage knowing half of Europe and every little small village, town, city that exists on this age old continent. But nonetheless, when Brian and I kept getting stuck and weren’t able to think of much anymore, we decided to join forces – Team America versus Team England. Jeremy also proposed a new rule – that the other team had to have heard of the geographic entity that was suggested. Yeah sure, that rule didn’t last long, because Brian and I never heard of half of Jeremy’s answers. And, after two hours of this game, Jeremy was still going strong, and we still sucked. So once we got to the top of the Col de Sorebois, Team America raised the white flag in defeat. But it was interesting to learn about all these places Jeremy knew of, and it did make the time go by quite fast, as we arrived at the top of the Col before we knew it.
However, shortly before the top of the Col, we met a Dutch man hiking with his dog. We took a brief break to chat – apparently this man had bicycled from the Netherlands down to France with man’s best friend and then begun his hike. He also planned to bike all the way back. I was quite impressed. Jeremy and the Dutch man had quite a go at each other, making fun of each other’s Queens, and Jeremy poked fun at the Dutch man saying, “Well, at least you’re not German.” I was quite amused – I love how each of these European countries actually have history, and people can joke with each other about it. There’s just nothing like that among us Americans.
So as you might guess, once we reached the top of the Col (yep, that’s right!) we then started our decent back down the mountain, towards the town of Zinal where we would be staying the night. This side of the mountain was actually a ski slope, and the going down was rather easy. I considered taking the ski lift down to Zinal, but the walk was gentle and it was only 45 min to the bottom, so I didn’t bother.
Once in Zinal, we found a cute bed and breakfast that the Kev Reynolds book recommended. The owner was very kind and showed us a loft full of beds, but there would only end up being two other people sleeping in the loft that night besides the three of us. We showered and then headed out to find some dinner. Because dinners in Switzerland ranged from $25 - $40 a person, Brian and I decided to eat cheap tonight, and get some sausage, cheese, and bread from the local grocery store for dinner. Oh, and some beer. Of course.
Once we ate dinner and rested a bit, we went out that night to explore the town, as we usually did. Zinal was one of my favorite villages as well. It wasn’t touristy like Chamonix, or popular and ritzy like Les Chables. It was an authentic, cute, Swiss village. The real deal. I also noticed that on all the homes, there weren’t house numbers to identify them – they were all identified by the family name written tastefully on the home. How much more personable can you get? We actually met a man who was in the process of building a chalet in town. He told us to be careful – hiking through Zinal years ago was how he ended up here building his chalet!
Oh a side note, it’s important to note that I was very conscious of how much cash we had at all times, and I was concerned that we were running out of money. Most of these small villages only accepted cash, and ATMs were few and far between. But there happened to be an ATM in Zinal, so I made sure that Brian got out enough cash for the remainder of the trip. Well, or so I thought. But you will see why I mentioned this later.
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