Vanoise – day 12
24.7.2023 Monday
Refuge des Evettes – L’Illaz camping
→ 20,69 km ↑ 169 m ↓ 1042 m
Frost yesterday, a hailstorm today. That’s how the mornings go now. Jozef was out before 2am taking photos and tells me how warm it is outside. Then one storm came, then another, maybe even a third. I lost count, I just tried to get a bit of sleep. The wind kept slapping the tent hard. I woke up at 5:30am and the sky was clear. We went back to sleep for a bit. Then a storm and hail woke us up. The tent held up, we stayed dry and relatively safe inside. Once it stopped, sometime before 9am, we packed everything at lightning speed and went to shelter in a hut 500 m away. More clouds were coming. At the hut we had coffee and watched what was happening outside. The storm went around the hut. So after 10am we headed down.
After a few kilometers we stopped to eat, and I finally managed to upload the blog. It started drizzling again, so we hurried to the cable car station.
As we got closer to the cable car, thunder started again. There we had a choice, either go down into town, where we were yesterday, or continue below the ridge. We chose the town route and hurried down the switchbacks. Rain caught us for just the last few minutes, and then we sheltered by the closed cable car station. Within 10 minutes the sun was out again. But I’m glad we’re down.
The forecast says showers or rain all day, which at these temperatures means a storm 90% of the time. In town we wanted pizza, but it only opens in the evening. So we go to the bakery instead. We buy 2 blueberry pastries, a baguette and a croissant. This region’s fairly known for blueberries, though I don’t think this particular pastry is anything exclusive.
The Kysuce blueberry cake back home is better. We fill ourselves with baguette and continue. We decided to only reach the town of Bessans today, where we’ll go to a campsite. We’re starting to smell, I want to wash my hair, and the weather’s very unpredictable. Since we’ve decided to stay low, we take a very easy route along the river.
We meet a lot of people, since it’s a nice walk with beautiful views. Easy walking, but it keeps switching between raining and not raining. We keep putting on and taking off our rain jackets. When it seems like it’s raining harder, we put on our rain skirts too, testing our rain gear for the first time. People give us odd looks, who knows why.
In Bessans we get coffee since we’re both tired from last night, then go shopping for the next two days. For dinner we buy a can of sauerkraut with meat and sausages. We’ve run out of Nutella and mashed potato. For now, a peach, chocolate dessert, baguettes and a blueberry beer. We reach the campsite around 5pm. We ask the lady for one night, pay, and head fast to spot number 13. Drops are already falling again. We pitch the tent fast, stash our things inside, and go straight to shower and do laundry. We string a line by the tent and hang up our clothes.
Jozef heats up the sauerkraut. It’s pretty good and there’s a lot of it. Today I paid attention to my diet and tried to eat more. I finish yesterday’s blog, drink the leftover wine from two days ago, and Jozef checks tomorrow’s route while drinking a blueberry beer. Because of the rain we take down and hang up the laundry about three more times. We leave it out overnight, at least there’s some chance it dries.
