Day 7: Champex to Trient (sort of)

Tuesday was a rest day, after six days on the trail. Exhausted, I needed to recharge and relax: Champex in the sunshine was a perfect place for just that.

On Wednesday, the following day, however, all the weather apps I could find forecast it was likely to be wet: heavy rain was forecast for all day, with high wind and thunder and lightning in the mix. And after several past brushes with recent extremes of weather behind me, I was erring on the cautious side. Only last year, my friend Keith and I had been almost blown off our feet in mid Wales on a walking holiday, despite thinking we were being cautious with a weather warning by diverting from a high trail to a lower road. And four years ago, I’d been in an Austrian alpine mountain refuge when a mudslide hit, the road and trail were washed away, cars buried, and we had to be flown out by helicopter. If I’d been a few hours later arriving I would have been underneath that mud too.

So with those experiences in mind, and besides, with the prospect of not being able to see much, the thought of a thousand metres downhill on muddy misty mountain trails filled me with dread.

Overnight, sure enough, the storm hit. I was woken a couple of times by flashes of lightning, rumbling thunder, and heavy rain and wind whistling through the trees. So I wasn’t surprised that I wasn’t the only one waiting at the bus stop in Champex who thought it better to give this stage a miss and take public transport instead. In fact it was a pretty full bus that took us all to Orsieres, where our through tickets connected precisely with first one train, and then a couple of stops later another at Sambrucher.

But I thought rather than arrive in the middle of nowhere at Trient by 1230, without access to my hotel room, in the pouring rain, I might as well spend most of the day in the much bigger town of Martigny, where the second train deposited me, and catch a later bus. Doing my internet research I discovered the tourist highlight of Martigny is ‘Barryland’ a kind of museum devoted to the St Bernard dog. So off I set, for what looked like a spanking new building that had obviously had some money spent on it.

Forking out my 25 Francs (almost the same in £) I thought this must be something, but clearly the money must have made these St Bernard’s the most pampered dogs around. The ground floor was a museum proper, which informed me that the St Bernard originated as a dog kept by the monks of the St Bernard hospice on the nearby St Bernard pass. Apparently they gave the dogs no training, with mothers training pups in the art of mountain rescue, although how this the original life saver gained its skills is lost to history. And I discovered why the place was called ‘Barryland’ as well -Barry being a St Bernard in the nineteenth century who holds the record for saving the most lives. It had nothing to do with Barry Manilow.

Downstairs was populated by mainly elderly dog lovers, whereas upstairs was a whole series of glass fronted rooms containing- largely sleeping- St Bernards. There must have been at least a dozen of them, and one was being groomed carefully by its keepers while children watched, agog. It all seemed a bit surreal.

I thought I’d venture into the rain outside to see what other wonders awaited me. as according to a signpost, there were both rabbits and tortoises outside, but all I managed to see was one dishevelled, wet rabbit, before I made my way back.

The whole experience lasted no more than half an hour and I struggled to see how you could make it last much longer really. Maybe I was expecting the impossible. I mean are we likely to get new tourist attractions springing up all round the world devoted to Alsatians, chihuahuas or Dalmatians? If this experience is anything to go by, I hope not.

So I set off for the centre of Martigny hoping for better things. But it didn’t look promising as all I seemed to find apart from various cafes were numerous optician’s shops. Now if I thought home in Helensburgh we did quite well for these, Martigny really seems to excel. By that time I came across about my twelfth opticians, I began to realise there was something familiar about them, and I’d simply been walking round in circles.

I’m afraid I never really found out whether there was much more to see in Martigny. I’m sure there is. But don’t rush out and book a week there unless you need glasses and are prepared to pay Swiss prices for them.

After a long wait for my bus to Trient, I finally boarded and once it made it out of town, it was a nerve wracking journey up narrow switchback roads, increasingly in the mist. In fact visibility went down to about fifty metres, and I was hanging onto my seat as we negotiated some incredibly tight zig zags up and down hill. In typical fashion at one point somebody actually overtook our bus just before one of these bends. All of which just made me glad even to get the bus journey over with, and certainly confirmed me in my judgement in not doing the walk today.

So tonight I’m in a fascinating hotel/hostel in a remote valley shrouded in mist. It seems like it’s a place with some faded grandeur where they’ve found they can make more money out of cramming people in, but luckily I’m upstairs with my own private room, albeit with no working wifi, hence this post may be late in arriving. My first experience trying to use the toilet wasn’t great either with the seat promptly falling off the minute I lifted the lid.

Tomorrow the weather looks set fair, so I’ll be back on the trail heading back into France. Only three more days left, and it’s another big climb.