And this is the day, I'll never forget! Don't get me wrong, I'll remember every day on this trek until the end of my life, but THIS DAY was more special. We ejected most of the possible fluids on our way - blood, tears, sweat and even some vomit, fortunately not enough for panic! We all touched our mental and physical capability limits on very hard way and some of us even crossed them, but we all survived and everyone can be proud about that. Looks like a perfect day to die on this pic, isn't it?
Day 6 began as usual - wake up alarm at 6 AM, started to walk at 8 AM. The first few kilometers of trail was a big mess due to lots of unmapped trails and some construction works. After almost two hours later we could still see our campsite at the distance:
Slow start wasn't good, because we had three mountain passes to cross today and very dramatic landscape ahead. Rapid changes of weather made this fantastic scenery even more dramatic...
The way to first pass was mostly a long traverse on very steep slope:
There were occasionally some warning-signs... Actually, they were more like direct orders not to waste your time and risking with your life in rockfall-zone:
And on the other side was another sign. Here you can see other trekkers crossing the danger-zone, while I'm already waiting for them:
Here is a good sample about combination of terrain and weather, we had to deal on this day:
...and this was just a beginning...
It took us almost 4 hours, but finally we reached to our first pass this day, Col Termin at 2648 m asl:
Four hours on the way and this was just a fractional part of our goal today!! No long break here, we were behind the schedule already... The journey to second pass was even more fantastic, you can look again the first picture of this post. It was shot about 10 minutes after leaving Col Termin. Very soon we were entered to Mordor! Here are some examples of new combinations between trail, boulderporn and constantly-rapidly changing dramatic weather:
And there was about a time to reach our second mountain pass this day... Can you see, how exhausted they look?
Do I have to remind, its just on the half way today, we have walked almost 7 hours already and there is a looooong way ahead today! I remember, I performed some motivational speech right after this moment. It could be the theory I had heard somewhere about 40%-rule: "If you think, you can't do any move anymore, you have used only about 40% of your real resources! So we had a perfect time to try the other 60% today...". Or it could be simply: "The first dead body will pay for all beers in our next bar!". Doesn't matter, it worked and we all survived!
Very soon we stood on the second mountain pass - Col de Louvie at 2921 m asl:
This pass was a gateway to another world, as you can see:
And don't forget, it was in middle of the August!
The only signs of humane existence were trailmarks on boulders:
There was no room for mistakes while crossing some wet obstacles:
We had many snowfields on our way this day:
But our way was still uphill:
And some short climbs as well:
At this moment, after 9 hours and 15 minutes of walking, we were more like crawling zombies, but we still moved towards our third and final mountain pass this day, highest on the whole trek:
It took another 40 minutes, before i took this picture on Col de Prafleuri at 2987 m asl:
And couple of minutes later I could shoot the rest of happy and exhausted faces on the pass:
We still had to descent and find a campground for us and there was one more water to cross:
This extremely long day still just refused to end... I don't even know our exact distance this day, because GPS-logger had limites as well and it missed my motivational speech. Anyway, it recorded 13,6 km and stopped working 2,5 hours before our journey was completed! So about 18 km is a fair calculation and we were on our way 11 hours!
Don't take too seriously all the above drama, this trail is the best kick-ass weekend hike with light backpack. Just drive to Le Chable on friday afternoon, take a ride to Les Ruinettes, and walk to Mont Fort hut for overnight without heavy trekking gear. Walk to cabane de Prafleuri on saturday and finish in Arolla on sunday. But check the weather forecast carefully, because its too easy to get Darwin Award on slippery stones or losing the trail in unexpected summer snowstorm! And don't forget to book your beds in huts well in advance...
Thanks for your time and I hope you liked it and got inspired for adventure!