Wednesday 2 September 2020
| Distance (km) | 10 kms | |||
| Distance (time) | 5.5 hrs | |||
| Climb / Descent | 975 / 440m | |||
| Hard / Soft surface | 30% / 70% | |||
| Landscape |
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| Weather |
 19° 2 Bft
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Refuges usually kick you out at 8am and Moëde Anterne is no exception to this rule. Hence, breakfast at 7, role up the sleeping bags, fill the waterbaf and of we go. The first shorty piece is really easy descending over gravel road to Chalets de Moëde, but even the track we then have to follow only descends gently without any difficult passages. Nevertheless we don't make it to Pont d'Arlevé in the 45 minutes that the guide and signs indicate. It takes us about half an hour longer. And after this descent it's in principle just climbing for the rest of the day. First it goes seriously up though not extremely steep and later it just becomes a gentle walk up the mountain. At Chalets d'Arlevé we have a pit stop. Actually we think they should rename it to Ruines d'Arlevé considering the state of the former chalets. After the ruins it keeps on climbing gently and by now we have risen above the tree line. By the time the path starts zigzagging up it has become quite stoney and also steeper again. We traverse up before the the path squeezes itself in between two ridges for a final and spectacular few hundred meters to Col du Brevent. The rocks and blocks are impressive, but so is the view on the Mont Blanc from Col du Brevent. We take a couple of pictures and psych ourselves up for the last section to the Brevent. Well, a nice part it is. Scrambling on hands and feet over big blocks where there is no more path and just markings painted on the bare rocks. On top of that there are a lot of Tour de Mont Blanc hikers (aka TMBers) en daytrippers here who all seem to be in a hurry and want to pass. Just before the (in)famous ladders 2 American ladies with a dog come down as they wanted to go the the Brevent but the dog can't pass the ladders (and it's too big to carry). So we wait for them the scramble down so that they're in a safer position while so-called sportive types just pass us left and right pushing both us and the Americans as we are apparently in their way. How polite. But we survive the ladders though my dearest is not so amused. The last bit up is a service road and ski slope, hence easier to walk. And so we're at 2525m altitude, yesterdays record has been broken already. We take the telecabin down to Planpraz where we buy tickets (there is no ticket booth at the Brevent). We buy return tickets as we have to get back up tomorrow. Then we continue to descend to Chamonix where we walk to the train station to grab a train to Cluses. Well, due to works on the railway line the train has become a bus until St.Gervais, but that's fine with us. At St.Gervais we do change to a train for the last bit to Cluses where the car is parked. And it's good we did because it's 5pm now and the bus won't leave until 6:15. So we saved ourselves over an hour of waiting here. |
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Download track MoeBre.gpx