Thursday 10 September 2020
| Distance (km) | 15 kms | |||
| Distance (time) | 4.5 hrs | |||
| Climb / Descent | 50 / 1300m | |||
| Hard / Soft surface | 50% / 50% | |||
| Landscape |
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| Weather |
 26° 1 Bft
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The last hiking day this year and even a short day. That is, on paper - it is a 4 hours descent and knowing us that may end up being 6 hours. In principal we want to reach Landry today and then tomorrow grab the train and bus back to Les Contamines to pick up the car. There are only 3 decent train connections per day, at 6:25am, 12:22pm and 2:22pm. Later is not possible because then we would miss the last bus to Les Contamines in St.Gervais. Let's say we do walk 6 hours and we would leave a bit earlier than usual, would we be able to catch the 2:22pm train? It's an interesting idea....it will be a long day today but in return we would have a resting day tomorrow before heading home. We discuss it a bit and decide to see if we can do it. And so we are a bit faster with breakfast and packing and we starting walking just before 8:30am. The first part is over the service road of the refuge and that is such an easy walk. The troubles start when we see the first houses. The GR5 keeps left onto a track that goes parallel to the gravel road. Just after the house there is a signpost...straight ahead to Valezan over a yellow/red track via Bon Pas, hence a regional walking trail. And to the left over a GR5 variant along Canal des Chapelles. Ok....but then where goes the GR5 main route? We have to go to Valezan but straight ahead we see no further indication and to the left we see a marking on a rock. So the variant it is and it is indeed very well marked. We walk along a very narrow path, rather flat, until we reacht a farmhouse. From here it starts descending and at the next farmhouse there is a signpost again. The two routes join again and hey, the route through Bon Pas is here indicated as the main GR5 and not as regional walking trail. Ok, so we walked a variant. So be it. The path keeps descending rapidly but over good quality roads and so we reach Valezan at ease. Through the village it descends very steeply and somewhere halfway we don't see signs anymore. We trust the GPS and follow the road through a hairpin, just to find out further down that we should have shortcutted it. We check the time and we're going like lightning, hence we have time for a lunch break. When we leave Valezan the signs say it's 30 minutes to Bellentre which is almost down in the valley. According to the guide it's 45 minutes though, we'll see. About 100m later the sign says that Bellentre is 20 minutes walking - forget it. But again, good paths and roads going down and indeed after about 45 minutes we enter Bellentre. Where we had troubles finding our way in Valezan, in Bellentre you would have difficulties missing it - almost any house has a GR5 marking on it and most of them actually explicitly say "GR5". Leaving Bellentre we have to descend further to the river where we cross and directly after the bridge turn left onto a cycle path. We walk without thinking and almost immediately have a racing bike in our butts. We apologize, our brains are not yet in the civilized world of cycling paths. The next 2 kms along the cycle path are a bit anti-climax and also boring...and very hot. But we get to Landry. Just a few photos of the name sign as we have finished another stage and guide of the GR5. Three more to go! And then we walk to the railway station...it's just before 1pm so we have plenty of time before the 2:22pm train. And then the long voyage back begins: train to Chambery, change to the train to Annecy, change to the train to Annemasse but step out in La Roche-sur-Foron where we change to the train to St.Gervais where we wait 20 minutes for the bus to Les Contamines. At 8:15pm we reach the car and since it's almost dark we decide the drive straight away to still have some daylight on the first winding part of our drive back to Samoëns. While driving we wonder how to handle dinner and we decide to go for our traditional end-of-the-holiday dinner at Buffalo Grill when we find out there is one in Sallanches. Result is that we're back at the camping at 10:30pm and we still have to take showers. But tomorrow we can rest before returning home! Next year hopefully we can continue with the Vanoise. |
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