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The rain started the evening before, and it continued throughout the night. When we woke in the early morning, the rain was coming down heavily. We enjoyed another giant buffet breakfast at le Grange. Recall that we were in this hotel in Entreves because our reservation at Maison Lo Campagnar was "cancelled". When they moved us to the le Grange, they insisted they would drive us back and forth to Courmayeur, they refused to give us bus tickets (which I thought was odd - aren't buses cheap?). After breakfast, we called Maison Lo Campagnar, and they drove over and took us back to Courmayeur. We didn't meet up with James and Stephen until about 9 A.M., but this late start turned out to be a good thing, because the heavy rain had stopped by then. The TMB route out of Courmayeur is uphill. At first we walked along a narrow road, but that turned into a dirt path that switchbacked up the side of the mountain. It was VERY humid, I was soaked with sweat immediately. It was a tough climb, but not muddy despite the recent rains. I was glad we didn't have to climb that hillside in a downpour. James was ill on this climb; I don't know if was from something he ate at breakfast, or if he felt the effects the intense humidity, or maybe he caught a 24 hr bug. Despite feeling so poorly, James soldiered upward, stoically conquering this stage of the Tour du Mont Blanc. Even though the rain had stopped, we were wrapped in dense clouds and couldn't see much of anything. At the top of that climb stands Refugio Bertone. I think we were all glad to pause here and rest for a while. The rest of the day's hike to Refugio Walter Bonatti was a relatively level path, with spectacular views to the north of Val Ferret, Grandes Jorasses, and the Dôme de Rochefort. Unfortunately, the clouds blocked most of the views, but occasionally we would get some glimpses across the valley. The rain began coming down again and we put on our rain gear. We found a stable beside the TMB (the guidebook called it "a long concrete cattle byre of Alp Leche") just as the clouds opened up and the rain came pounding down. We stood inside that stable for about fifteen minutes as the heavy rain poured down. Outside the stable stood a couple of tethered horses - I was amused by the idea of humans standing dry inside a stable while the poor horses stood outside in the rainstorm. We didn't know how long the cloudburst would continue, so we put on our rain gear, prepared our umbrellas and resumed hiking. Less than five minutes after exiting the cattle byre, the heavy rain abruptly ceased and the clouds started lifting again. We walked along the flank of Mont de la Saxe, crossing a few streams and getting some better views of the southern face of the Mont Blanc massif. It wasn't too long before we spotted Refugio Walter Bonatti on the mountainside. There is a fifteen minute uphill climb to reach Bonatti, but soon we were there and checked in. Walter Bonatti is a privately owned refugio. It knows how to handle a lot of hikers - there was a big drying room for wet gear, and large sinks for washing out mud. I thought the rooms here were much nicer than Refugio Elisabetta. Stephen went out for a run along the TMB. James lay in bed studying his CPA notes (I was astonished that he carried all those study materials on the entire TMB, I thought he had left them back in Courmayeur, to be picked up on the way back to Geneva.) In the common room, there were a lot other hikers; Melanie overheard one party mention that they were from San Diego, so we introduced ourselves (Melanie and I used to live in San Diego) - this was our first meeting with the San Diego Group, we would see them on all of our remaining days on the TMB, they proved to be fun and friendly company. At 5 PM, the rain started up again, but Stephen was back from his run before then. Refugio Walter Bonatti served everyone a multi-course dinner with astonishing efficiency. We went to bed early again. The rain and clouds had obscured the scenery, but the weather could have been so much worse (the day after we finished the TMB, we had a spare day in Chamonix and it rained relentlessly that entire day, with the clouds never lifting - THAT would have been a worse day!) Panorama Photos
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Click on any thumbnail to begin the slide show at that photograph TMB Stage 6
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