Day 5 - July 2, 2024 (Italy/Switzerland; to Gîte de la Lechère, 11 km, +624 m, -700m)
Breakfast was more substantial - the usual bread, butter and jam, plus hard boiled eggs, cheese, ham, and yogurt.
We set out and up, wearing our rain pants, as we knew it could be wet and cold with the snow at the top of the Grand Col Ferret mountain pass, our highest point of elevation on the trip (2,537 m). It was a fairly steep, continuous ascent, although the path was relatively smooth (no tree roots here). The wind got stronger and colder. Sadly, we realized our gloves were in one of the donkey packs - and the packs were in a truck with the donkeys for this one day only, as the donkeys had to be transported around this snowy stretch.
We persevered, got over the top (and the border with Switzerland), which was incredibly windy (I thought I would surely get a headache from the intense vibration of my stiff hat brim in the wind, but it didn't last too long), then descended slushy, snowy slopes for quite some time. After a couple of hours we reached our picnic lunch stop at Alpage des Ars. The sun was out, and it was a stunning contrast to the clouds we'd passed through earlier.
After lunch we descended further by the winding road to a park with the rapidly flowing Drance de Ferret river. Then, up again a short distance to our hut for the night, Gîte de la Lechère, where we were reunited with our donkeys. It was quite small and a beautiful building, which had been restored in recent years from an old ruin.
We did some laundry and relaxed for a couple of hours before dinner, which was a delicious soup (pea and potato?), salad with very nice, fresh lettuce, potatoes, green beans and ham (with a somewhat odd orange sauce), and crème caramel for desert (made with milk from their own cows). Miles had his second Macadamia nut ice cream bar (having had one earlier, as a snack) in substitution for his egg allergy, which he declared delicious.
Our beds were mattresses side-by-side on two levels of platforms - I had a friendly chat almost entirely in French with 2 Parisians next to us, who said we were hiking the best half of the Tour du Mont Blanc. It is remarkable how several days of French immersion has made us all more comfortable speaking in French, particularly Miles, who seems to hold his own with the other boys (who are rather shy about trying out their English).
We also met a German woman, who was hiking with her son (one of the few other children we saw on the Tour). They had just finished 20 km in the rain, and were greatly relieved to finally have good weather, which made me feel much better about the relatively short period of windy cold we had endured crossing over the mountain pass.
We brought in the laundry before bed as it was predicted to rain (and indeed it did). We had to wait until after dinner to check the weather report, as the proprietor of the hut would not turn on the wifi until after dinner when everyone had paid for their stay. It seemed very Swiss - strict rules, with no deviations.
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