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Breakfast
was at 5am, but we got in at 5.15. "You're late", says the guy in
the kitchen, but there is plentiful breakfast, bread, butter, jam,
cake, tea, coffee or chocolate. The hut cost 460FrF and we collected
our BMC reciprocal rights cards. As dim light is arriving we set
off and torches are not necessary. Quite a lot of other people are
heading the same way to begin with and on reaching the snow we rope
up along with the others. Our route heads for the Col du Tour (as
recommended by the book) and we watch as other teams go up the shorter
and much steeper Col du Tour Sup. Only two other teams go our way,
but we are first to the Col as one takes a steeper line and the
other rests with children. We walk into the rising sun and tentatively
walk towards the edge, only to   find
that the route is corniced and below there are 3 fresh, small avalanches.What
to do? There looks to be a way off to the right, but it is fairly
steep and I wouldn't like to fall there, especially on our first
full day out. As we descend a few metres to check out another possibility,
the team with children are now at the Col but climbing a few rocks
to the left. We wonder whether they will find a way through but
they settle down for some food. The small gap we are checking out
doesn't look feasible, even though there are tracks apparently leading
through to the other side. We cannot get down from here, so we make
the decision to fully retrace our tracks to the Col du Tour Sup,
where most teams had gone earlier. It was annoying and probably
lost us the best part of 2 hrs. The climb is short but fairly steep
and for day one we took it slowly. At the rocky col, we rested for
a few minutes and had a nibble and a drink. A guided party arrive
and then move on to do a route on the    Aig
du Tour. Our way takes us down across the Glacier du Trient. We
look over to the Aig du Chardonnay and the Aig d'Argentière,
trying to work out where the skiing route comes through as a recce
for a possible future winter trip. Also we look back and see where
we had tried to come through earlier. It confirms that we had been
correct to retrace our steps. The possibilities we had considered
were not easily feasible. I take a tiny short cut on a corner in
the track and my right leg goes through the snow, fortunately I
can simply   extricate
myself and carry on, but it's a warning to take care. We head over
toward the Trient Hut and before descending have a short lunch break
for chicken we had brought with us. Keeping right we go down the
Glacier D'Orny. There are climbers on the ridge to the left and
the snow is soft as we descend past the Cab D'Orny. 2 or 3 parties
turn in toward the Hut, but we carry on down to the path along the
moraine. Past the Lac d'Orny and the long path towards the Brenay
lift. As the rucksac became heavier and heavier, each   bend
around the ridge became the one leading to the lift and each time
hope was dashed. The book said the lift ran on the hour, every hour,
but as we finally rounded the last bend and saw the lift, it was
with great relief to see it running non-stop. Bill paid the 9SFr
each for us to ride down. It was a beautiful ride, through the trees,
with superb view down over Champex and its lake. I thought "That's
the best 90p worth of lift ever, until I suddenly realised we were
in Switzerland and it was almost £4.50. Ah well, the best £4.50s
worth. At the bottom Bill was already chatting to the lift woman
to find out where the bus ran from. He came out, after a chat, to
say we were booked into a hotel on the lake front. All we had to
do was walk the half mile to it. We were in the Auberge de la Foret
in a room overlooking the lake, with a small balcony and a superb
view. A bath first and then down to the bar for a pint. Discussions
centred on the weight of our sacs and we concluded that we had set
off suffering from Brits disease. Packing for every eventuality
was not a viable option. We had to dump a pile of gear otherwise
we wouldn't make the trip. We had bivvy gear - bivvy bags, mats,
stove, packet soup etc. I had brought my 45m, 9mil rope, which I
was not prepared to cut, so an alternative had to be found . The
rope had to be left. I had my  duvet
jacket as well as my fleece jacket, the duvet was dumped. Two ice
screws also went as well as other small items. We bagged quite a
weight of gear, which we deposited at the hotel.
It was a surprise to find that our half board included an excellent
five course evening meal and, somewhat later than we had intended,
we went to bed feeling quite stuffed.
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