This day was another special day for many reasons. The main reason was the duration spent between two camps - we departed already in dakness before sunrise at 6 AM and finished in Arolla 6:40 PM. But it wasn't our longest day by distance, we covered "only" 21,2 km and that was sufficient to rank as 3-rd place.
We didn't waste the time for breakfast. We just packed our stuff together and headed towards our first mountain pass - Col des Roux at 2804 m asl. It wasn't far and we reached there in less than an hour with first sunrays:
The view from the pass was unforgettable! Our route was planned over the pass (visible diagonally over the lake) and descending to the bottom of next valley. Very motivating to see such a long way after such a hard day we had yesterday:
We already missed so much our skipped breakfast, so we didn't waste too much time there and made a really fast descending until the first stream. Twenty minutes later we were cooking our porridges and coffees...
Soon after breakfast we continued the journey. We had to cross many streams before reaching to wide trail. There was also a unmanned hut for overnight stays. There was just a guestbook and box for money, where visitors supposed to put their payments:
There were also many marmots! They were everywere, but they escaped as soon as we tried to approach for photoshoot. I still show here one of the closest shot I got with my phone:
Very soon we were on valley floor, stepping fast forward and enjoying very nice views and weather after all the madness day before...
This combination of the scenery and weather was very different compared to yesterday. I can't put here a pic of the romantic pair of cattle 3 seconds before, otherwise I should add here a NSFW-tag:
After 4,5 hours of walk we were finally on the other end of the lake:
And 40 minutes later we were looking down to lake, being back in heights:
Very soon the lake was forgotten and the serious part of the day was in full swing:
Can you see this sharp spike through the lowest pass on the nearby ridge?
This was the first time we were able to make eye-contact with our destination - awesome Matterhorn! And don't forget, after today we have still half of the trek ahead! One more week to go...
Following section of our way was actually a bonus detour and official Walkers Haute Route took a shortcut. We just wanted to see more and couldn't miss a chance to cross the real glacier. This forced us to make a turn to uphill:
So this was our next scrambling:
About 7 hours after leaving our campsite this morning, we had time for lunch here, near summit of Tete Noire:
And there is our next steps on other side with Cab. des Dix and Glacier de Cheilon:
Very soon we reached to glacier down below and saw Cab des Dix from other side up on the mounatin:
The glacier seemed to be fairly safe to walk even without crampons and rope:
But glaciers have always some hidden streams beneath and usually some open streams on sides as well. They are not easy to cross and sometimes it takes time to find a safe way. It doesn't look so scary on my picture, but trust me, nobody doesn't want to fall into ice-cold roaring water! Finally we were able to cross it and leave the glacier:
We had few more obstacles before our final mountain pass this day. First of them was ascending a steep scree slope with lots of loose rocks.
It looked really dangerous to scramble all together behind each other. Almost every step triggered some small rockfall, but finally we got it done. And there was a short section of more like imaginary trail with attached chain:
And right after those ladders...
... was our expected mountain pass - Pas de Cevres at 2855 m asl:
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We still had to descent all the way down there and around the corner to the left:
After all the efforts the trail was still teasing us with all its twists and loops:
But it was worth it to reach to colorful Arolla, after all of our days in deserted terrain:
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Another short descent to the bottom of the valley, we settled us on official campsite:
Thanks for your time and attention, I really hope you liked and got inspired by this! :)
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