This morning we got a nice taste of French bureaucracy. So yesterday when we took the shuttle to the campground, we checked the earliest departure time the next day, which was 7:30 from the campground. It was a little later than we normally leave but fine. So today we woke up and since we knew the shuttle was small, lined up early to get on the 7:30 shuttle. 45 minutes early. There wasn’t much of a line. When the shuttle arrived and we tried to board, the driver told us to wait, while everyone else with white tickets was allowed to board. Ours were blue as they were purchased from the bus driver the day before. Evidently the white tickets were timed bus tickets so all those people had reserved a spot on the 7:30 bus. Our tickets could only be used after everyone with reservations arrived or didn’t show up. So the blue tickets we purchased yesterday were inferior to these white ones which you could only purchase from the machine at the campground. And get this, apparently there was a way for us to go into the office when it was open, yesterday, and exchange our blue tickets for white ones for the following day but guess who told us this? The same fucking bus driver who said, sorry there’s no room left on this bus you’ll have to wait. There is no signage indicating this, the bus driver yesterday didn’t do anything to explain any of this, and the bus driver today just repeated, what I imagine he has to repeat EVERY FUCKING MORNING, to people like us. But no, it’s not “his fault” it’s just “the rules.” He doesn’t make them, he’s just enforcing them. The fact that he hasn’t taken any initiative to fix what must be such an obvious, daily issue makes him, in my mind, just as much of a problem as this entire stupid, hidden reservation system. I’m glad we stood around for 45 minutes, to be rejected on a bus that we paid for yesterday, only to be driven downhill. We angrily walked the 3 miles back up the road to start our day. Screw them and their shitty bus system. Make a damn sign you lazy sacks.
It took us an hour to get back to where we took the bus the day before. At that point, because of the bus and the various taxis as well as just other groups starting, we were behind a ton of people on our first climb of the day. This only annoyed me because it was entirely avoidable. I think the French takeaway from this scenario would be, “ok now I know the rules and I will follow them next time.” Mine was, forget playing by their rules, something else will probably screw me next time anyway. We should have just “illegally camped” near the trail like we had intended. We would have been up and out before 95% of the people showed up anyway.
Thankfully the trail was wide enough so we could walk by most of the slower moving people on the climb. Zoë said she walked off all her spite in the 3 miles. I still had some left over and used it to boost me to the top. Thankfully the climb was mostly in the shade. It was supposed to be any easy climb but it really didn’t feel like it. Near the top, it was in direct sun and the last 15 minutes or so were much hotter than the first bit. At the top, we crossed from France into Italy. We had started in Switzerland, gone to France, and were now in Italy, our 3rd country on this trail. Everyone else though, this was their first new country. There was a group of Americans loudly celebrating at the top, “it’s not bonjour anymore it’s BONJOURNO!” We quietly fist bumped and moved on.
Somehow most of the people were still at or before that pass because afterwards the crowds thinned dramatically. The descent was uneventful. We then hit a long, flat road, followed by another climb. This one was in full sun. It got hot, fast and as soon as a stream crossed the trail I dunked my shirt and hat. Aside from that, we powered our way to the top. We had lunch at the top with quite nice views of Mont Blanc and several glaciers. It was a busy spot.
The descent after lunch was good for a while. Then we got to some restaurant on a ski hill and the descent turned into dusty, steep bullshit. By the time we got to the town of Courmayeur at the bottom, we were drenched in sweat and covered in dirt. It was much hotter down low.
The first thing we did was get gelato in town. I had dark chocolate and pistachio. It was excellent. Then we walked to the only open grocery store since it’s Sunday. Then we took the free bus to a campground. We’ll stay here 2 nights because of how the route goes which means we can take almost nothing in our packs tomorrow. Win. Not a bad birthday.
For dinner we had rotisserie chicken on salad with tomatoes, cucumber and some oil from sun-dried tomatoes as dressing. It was not too bad. It was no cook. The pizzas here at the campground were popular but didn’t smell that good. The Google reviews don’t rave about them so they’re probably shit.