To Val Montjoie

Our camp site was situated just a stone's throw from the next part of the trail, so there was no warm up trot along the road before we started to climb. Even worse, at the first zig-zag we were out in the open sun, and boy, was it hot that day.

We decided the thing to do was to maintain a slow, but steady pace and follow Gio who is a master of the art of plodding.

We also admired Gio's technique of finding good places to rest, where there was a) an icy stream close by for a cooling dip (see behind) and b) a nice flat stone to sit on and dry off. Gio also liked this particular spot as the red and white 'GR' trail markings brought back happy memories of our time following similar blazes on our way to Santiago.

Finding a good spot to rest was quite important as there was a bit of waiting to do, but not too much. This was our view as we watched our male minder toiling up the patch with a man in red from the hotel group.

When we got to our refuge coffee stop at the top, we had to look after our male minder who was suffering a bit from low blood sugar. We were quite amazed at the number of sugar lumps we had to shovel in before he could taste the sweetness. For the first cup it was about five! He is made of strong stuff though and recovered with the second cup.

 The top was La Croix du Bonhomme (2,478m) where we posed for our customary cairn picture, with a wonderful view as our backdrop. We camouflaged rather well with the stone, but if you look carefully, you might spy all 3 of us on the left hand side.

From the cairn it was a real treat to enjoy another great ridge walk along to the Col. It was quite a rocky path so we took our time; needless to say Simon, our guide, ran along it later to catch us up, just like a mountain goat. At the end of the ridge, before we started our afternoon's descent, we paused for lunch, enjoying both the views and the sunshine. Simon astounded us all by telling us that on the previous trip, just 2 weeks earlier the weather had been atrocious at this point, with blizzard conditions and the need to break trail through thick snow. We think it was quite a worrying time for him, but, true professional that he is, he got everyone down safely.

Talking of snow, even on our sunny day, we had a substantial snowfield to cross on our descent. Here we are, going down in size order so as to break trail and make sure we didn't have snow going over Yorkie's head.

There was still plenty of crunch in the snow so it wasn't too slippery. It was a shame we didn't have skis, as it would have made a lovely run.

After the previous night's wild camp, our new camp site was part of a big leisure park with all facilities and even a lake doubling as the local lido.

Back soon

Lots of love George, Yorkie and Gio xxx