This morning we woke to snow, which meant we had to change our plans. It wasn’t totally unexpected and had been forecast. However, yesterday evening we went to to bed with rain and a cold wind, but no sign of snow. Two of the people we met at dinner, Martine and Jean-Pascal suggested we climb the mountain together tomorrow. I thought this was probably a good idea because we could help each other navigate and encourage each other. So we made a plan to get up at six, have breakfast and leave by seven.
When John and I went down to the bathroom at six, John pointed out it was snowy outside and that, rather than heading up the mountain, we would be putting our escape plan into action. We’d already worked out that, if there was snow, we could walk down to Fionnay, catch a bus to Le Châble, then take two trains to Martigny then Sion. Finally, a bus would take us to our hotel at the Grand Dixence barrage. A long convoluted way round, but safe!
Although we considered that going uphill into the snow wasn’t a good idea, some of the groups at the hut decided to give it to go. We would have had a long day even without the snow… crossing two of the highest cols on the Walkers’ Haute Route (Col de Louvie 2921 metres and Col de Prafleuri 2939 metres) and a boulder field called Le Grand DĂ©sert. This would’ve been really difficult in the snow, and miserable in the low cloud, wind and rain.
We set off downhill with Martine and Jean-Pascal, following another group of 7 or 8 people, all well wrapped up in our waterproofs. We were a bit faster than the others, probably because my knees weren’t hurting today. Despite them telling us to go ahead, we kept waiting for them to catch up. However, after a while, we did end up leaving them behind because we were getting cold waiting.
At one point the cloud cleared and we could see down the valley, into the distance. However, the rain soon started again. It was such a lovely walk along a beautiful path, in places carved out of the hillside, and with flowers surrounding us all the way down. However, we did get fed up by the end, just plodding through the drizzle.
Finally, we reached the lake at Fionnay and went to find the bus stop. We were pleased to see a bus to Le Châble was due in two minutes so, when it arrived, we jumped on. Although we felt a bit guilty not waiting for the others, we thought they’d understand that we would’ve been cold waiting another hour or so for the next bus.
The first bus and the two trains went smoothly. We then had to wait for over an hour in Sion for the post bus to the barrage. We decided to find a café for lunch to stay warm. Our packed lunches from the cabin will hopefully be okay for tomorrow.
When we left the café, Martine and Jean Pascale, were already at the bus stop. We boarded the bus together for the hour long journey along narrow roads with dozens of hairpin bends, climbing from about 500 metres in Sion to about 2100 metres at the bottom of the barrage. The others left us here to climb to Cabane de Prafleuri where they’re sleeping. We may see each other along the trail tomorrow.
John and I were too early to check in to the hotel, so we decided to catch the cable car to the top of the barrage. The Grand Dixence Barrage is the world’s highest gravity dam (285 metres) and has a huge storage capacity of 400 million cubic metres. It collects rainwater and melting water from snow and 35 glaciers in the region. It was interesting learning about it in the visitor centre.
We’re now settled in our hotel room, warm and clean, waiting for dinner time. It’s snowing again at the moment, but the sun is coming out tomorrow for our hike along Lac des Dix and over the Col de Riedmatten to Arolla.
Ramblings 
This looks colder than we are here in the Southern Hemisphere, at the height of our winter!
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