High

Crossed the mountains […] and by dint of scrambling on foot also, – the whole route beautiful as a Dream and now to me almost as indistinct, – I am so tired – for though healthy I have not the
strength I possessed but a few years ago.

Byron’s Alpine Journey, September 18th-29th, 1816

After a hot and sticky night, we were grateful to fall out of the hotel which had a single duvet on a double bed and almost no ventilation, into the cool of the morning. 

Almost immediately, we discovered a much nicer part of Martigny that had escaped us yesterday, starting by taking a little detour off the route to pass by some Roman remains that we could see on the map.

The municipal swimming pool, at this early hour full of energetic school children was constructed fittingly right next door to the thousand-yr-old Roman bath complex.  The display included the text of Julius Caesar’s account of the Gallic Wars, III, 1-6, in which he gives a self-congratulatory and not very truthful account of the battle for Martigny (Octodurus). According to him they emerged the victors; in reality the local tribes pulled off a real exploit and forced Caesar’s troops to withdraw and winter elsewhere.

Standing on the glass pavement I rather wished I could sit in an underfloor-heated steam room and then have a massage.

I was too hard on Martigny last night.  To get out of town, we walked through a beautiful section with lovely old houses and workshops full of artists and artisans — a cello maker, a calligrapher.

There was a tiny neighbourhood outdoor cinema,

and templates for hopscotch and other pavement games had been painted on the quiet road.

The station (where we saw the Canadians getting on a train to take them up the mountain) marked the end of four days of relatively flat walking. Today was going to be very different. ‘We will not be doing the ‘Meditative Path’ at the end of the day which gives us another 75 m of climb along a path with busts of the Saints,’ announced Stephen.

In the guidebook this section of the path is described as being the ‘the most difficult stretch of the entire Via Francigena’. It had its moments, I would say. The first section, which took us round the nose of the mountain in shadow to the left of the above photograph, doubled up as an exercise trail.

Stephen was of the opinion that we should be doing the ‘Endurance’ pathway. As we climbed, we kept coming across little exercise stations with equipment like rings and bars, and posters with the instructions on the exercises we should be doing.

The path was narrow and often on a very steep camber, but it was entirely doable. At this early stage in the walk I had enough energy to notice the details about the forest like the first bolete mushrooms.

But mostly, I needed to keep my focus on the path, to avoid tripping on the roots,

some of which were whole root systems running along the path.

Stephen kept his focus mostly on the route-map. There were many really precipitous descents which was rather frustrating since by the end of the day in Orsieres we were at 880m and Martigny had been at 460 but had climbed 740 m.  I thanked the lucky coin in my pocket that the path was dry. The roots, rocks and mud would’ve been quite testing on a wet day.

But personally, I don’t think it had anything on the section of the route that followed the unnervingly bouncy chain bridge.

Although we had no idea what lay ahead.  We were just charmed by the little village with the houses for the palisade children from a couple of days ago.

Some of their real houses (or at least their barns) looked as though they needed a little TLC. These wooden structures were to become another feature of the day, perhaps an indication of how high we are climbing.

The entrance to the forest was through a colossal woodyard,

where men were passing tree trunks through splitters to create more firewood to bundle up into the giant cords.

Next door to them the shed which I had thought was for wood storage turned out to be a little rest area for pilgrims with a stone basin and a water fountain, and a long table with benches for large groups to sit in.  How civilised!

And then we were into the forest again.  Lulled  by a false sense of security at first with a lovely flat wide path, we were walking more or less parallel to the road and the river. We were enveloped by the sound-deadening world of the pine forest.  Scents of pine resin.  The river was bubbling below us and the trees were full of goldfinches, but the rhythmic noise of our footsteps that we are used to as a background accompaniment to our walk was muffled by pine needles.

Ants, sent out of their massive citadel, went about their secret work,

and a wasp struggled on the ground, furious and focused, winning a battle to the death with a cricket.

There was a procession of dead tree-trunks, silently rotting and pock-marked by woodpeckers.

Then things rapidly deteriorated: at one point the path had been recently entirely washed away. We picked our way across the rocks and dried mud — it’s inconceivable that this route would be passable on a very wet or stormy day.

(Similarly, a so-called path under a bridge further down the mountain had been badly flooded and again, if even slightly swollen with rain, would be impassible.

And another further on which was passable for now but would deteriorate further in the next storm.)

Next, a section where cobbles had slid down onto the path and beyond — it didn’t last forever but it required concentration not to turn an ankle.

Then, rocks and roots,

rocks and roots

Punctuated by occasional breathers of decent path, or clearings where the rock features were so spectacular that people had hiked just to see them, perhaps do a little bouldering, and had lit fires.

And for a couple of kilometres there were just patches where the forest had grown up around the ancient rockfalls and the only way to know where to go was by investigating the yellow diamond signs.

And finally we were out, and only a kilometre or so from the town where we would stop for lunch, emerging into a high valley

with species-rich flower meadows on either side, smelling of sweet hay,

Sembrancher in its entirety is designated as part of the Inventory of Swiss Heritage.  There were directional signs to a ‘museum of ancient things’, but much of the town has preserved wooden buildings from the 17th century, massive, traditionally-built barns and storehouses constructed to cope with snow and be accessible during significant falls.

The doorways still retained in many cases their original ironmongery.

We enjoyed these as we went past but we were in fact making a beeline for the first water fountain we could find.

Sembrancher water is famous: with a naturally high fluorine content it is a significant export of the town, but they kindly give it away free to pilgrims.

Stephen used the old cable bobbin as arable to make us lunch

and pretty soon the others arrived: the Ozzies

and then French sisters Annie and Brigitte, doing the Francigena in two-week chunks together, because they both have grandchildren to look after and can’t get away very often.  We had met them earlier on the trail and they’d told us we were the first pilgrims they’d seen since Lausanne.

It was very jolly and we were all hot and knackered and intoxicated with having conquered the taxing path. I had been soaking my cotton headband in water to help keep cool, and as I got my other bandana out to soak to put around my neck, Mick agreed that it was ‘a two-bandana day’.

It certainly was: the path climbed very steeply, but mostly in shade and not at all unmanageably, 

and at this meeting point between three valleys, gave stunning views back across the way we climbed to great slabs of sheer rock emerging from the pinewoods,

Or more open views back over the town, like the header photo for today, or forward into the valley where somewhere ahead and upwards lay Orsières.

Now we were too high for grapevines, and were walking amongst crops of thyme and lemonbalm, and starting to see livestock; we could hear the occasional cowbell, and were watched by goats lying on a heap of agricultural machinery.

There were horses, shaking clouds of flies from their heads,

and also insects: masses of the blue-winged crickets flying up around our feet, a huge blue/black Xylocarpa carpenter bee, and a male ladybird spider — one of the velvet spiders, and pretty gorgeous with it. It looked like a mini tarantula.

After the difficult scramble through the forest this high and open landscape was a literal breath of fresh air. It was hot now but we both agreed that the sun didn’t have as much power as it had yesterday. Perhaps because there were more water fountains to wet the bandanas,

or that there were simply more frequent shady sections to keep us out of the sun.

On one tree we noticed a pilgrim counter — with a sign to say please not to disrespect it (by which I understood it to mean not to run back and forth across the sight line to bump up the pilgrim count, which admittedly was a very strong temptation).

If the Francigena administrators were keeping an eye on us, Stephen was keeping a pretty close eye on the route (the French sisters eventually arrived much later than everyone else because they’d taken some wrong turns) and was particularly focused around the Orsières town recycling centre.  One of the yellow painted diamonds had been scrubbed out and we were encouraged to go uphill. Some real scrutinising suggested that we should reroute ourselves along the road into town.

Then it dawned on Stephen that the signposts were telling us to take the Meditative Path. ‘We were nearly sandbagged,’ said Stephen.

If I had seen a bust of a Saint by that point, I think I would’ve combusted.

Hot and tired as we were, the entry into Orsières was galvanising.  For one, it was a gentle downhill.  Secondly Stephen was enthused about a small machine on the back of a tiny truck: it had thick spiked wheels and a blade on the front.  This is why people aren’t out there with scythes getting blisters mowing the flower meadows for hay, said my agricultural implements expert (I do remember when he left me in France last year being somewhat adrift with regards to interpreting strange machines).

I was galvanised by the very first signpost for the Great St Bernard Pass — and Italy.

And if that wasn’t enough, a glorious glacial river crossing led the eye up into the foothills of the Mont Blanc range.

We were first to arrive at the pilgrim dormitory accommodation, so got first pick of the beds, choosing two mattresses rather than the more crowded bunks.

Stephen immediately went off to get some proper food to cook — we need breakfasts and suppers for two days and lunch for three (lightly scrambled egg with cheese and leek, and rosti potatoes, lots of oats and yoghurt for breakfast, and fruit).  I made tea for Annie and Brigitte as they staggered in.  They have rather a lovely system — after their end-of-day showers, Brigitte gives Annie a leg massage, and then Annie returns the favour!

It was a lot of up today — steady over the whole day with the biggest pull-up after lunch. Tomorrow is a shorter day with more elevation, and the day after it’s an even shorter day with even more climb, up to the Col, above the tree line.

So far, knees so good!

Stats for the Day

Distance: 20.59 km — more than advertised but did not include the extension route with meditations on busts of saints

Elevation: 740 m — Stephen’s watch measured 808

Busts of Saints Meditated Upon — a satisfying 0