Cabane du Mont Fort, Valais, Switzerland
Day five was supposed to be a rather difficult day on the
trail with an elevation gain of approximately 5,000 feet from Le Chable in the
valley at around 2,700 to Cabane de Montfort way up high at nearly 8,000 feet
altitude. The guidebook to the Haute Route describes a trail winding through
the forest nor far from the lower pistes of the Verbier ski resort, emerging a
couple times to a restaurant or snack bar, the latter part of the hike being
the high level walk to the mountain hut. That actually sounds needlessly
miserable.
What I discovered in Le CHable was that if I had a booking
at the Montfort hut, I could take the Verbier gondolas to the top for free and
then only have a relatively short and level two-hour walks from the top gondola
station at Les Ruinettes. I decided that’s what I was doing even if it was
cheating. I got a very leisurely late
start from my hotel and took the gondolas to the top around 10:00 A.M. I have to admit to being impressed by
Verbier, not a ski village on the mountain like Beaver Creek, Colorado but an
entire ski city.
And the ski bowl above it is enormous, and the lifts continue
further in every direction.
In fact the two hour walk along a bisse (irrigation chanel)
most of the way to the Cabane de Montfort was between ski lifts on territory
that seemed like high altitude cow pasture in summer is all transformed to intensively
used ski slopes in the winter. Now I definitely want to ski in the Alps, and I’m
impressed enough with Verbier that it’s a place I’d consider.
Well, my easy cheat day got me to the mountain hut/cabane before
1:00 in the afternoon. It reminded me of a time in the Pyrenees my brother and
I did the same – stopped at a high altitude mountain hut around mid-day because
we somehow believed it was too far to push on to the next place. Anyway, the scenery
from the hut at around 8,000 feet altitude was stunning, the Dents du Midi to
the west, the Mont Blanc Massif to the southwest with the tip top of the peak
visible behind some aiguilles, and the Grand Combin directly to the south or
slightly southeast. The Grand Combin is one of the Alps 4,000 meter (over 13,000
foot peaks) and one of the few entirely in Switzerland. It also has one of the
largest icefields and glaciers of any of the alpine peaks.
What to do but have a few beers and some fondue while
sitting outside on the terrace in the sunshine? I was more impressed with this
fondue than the one I had in France, here a bubbling pot of cheese, almost like
a soup. I’m not sure I’m going to end this day with a calorie deficit after a
meal like that. And believe it or not, there’s even WiFi at this mountain hut. Being
a weekday in September the place wasn’t at all crowded either. I’m running into
the same people each day along the Haute Route, the small handful of
adventurers doing the walk toward the end of the season.
2025-05-22