Day Sixteen ~ Saturday, May 11

Today was the big day in reverse. We had to bid the Chalet we had to ourselves farewell, and made our way back across the 15km to the Chalet in Champex.
We had a bit of a later start, by about an hour. Our goal was to be hiking by 9, and were on the move by 9:20.
The weather was cloudy, but not as foggy as it had been the day before. Then we started out on our hike. We changed just a bit from the first time, and walked down the road to the next town to get to the trail so that we could bypass the snowy part of the trail.
We still had to navigate the fallen trees, of which there were even more than when we came through the first time, but that hardly slowed us down. We started with our usual 20 minute section to feel out the layers we wanted on, took a ten minute break, and then set out on our 45 minute blocks of hiking.
Boy did we cruise. After two 45 minute sections, we stopped for lunch, about 15 minutes beyond where we had eaten lunch the first time.
After lunch we continued on with another couple 45 minute blocks before we started to get really close. Then the blocks of hiking became shorter, and the levels of excitement rose. Finally we pushed past the dungeon in the side of the mountain and found ourselves in the town of Champex once again. At this point our group lost all cohesion, and those in front made a beeline to the Chalet.
The whole hike ended up taking about 5 hours or so, maybe a tiny bit more, but it was very impressive: we shaved off a couple hours from our first hike. This gave us a bit of town time to enjoy as well.
We rushed down to this amazing crepe place that Sean M. and Matt talked non-stop about. Some people causing delays also caused great frustration. And for good reason: the kitchen of that café closed at 4 p.m. Right when we got there!
So we made our way over to another café selling crepes and had our crepes there. I had a sugar and cinnamon crepe, which honestly was kind of disappointing. I was remembering my French crepe from 2007, but I guess this was a swiss-french crepe, and so couldn’t quite meet the same standards. But then we returned for dinner and evening program.

-Joseph Bruner