Haute Route Day 2 - Trient hut to Champex to Bourge St Pierre
by overflow50
After the quite strenuous first day of the Haute route the second day was a welcome rest, the only climbing being about 100m vert and the rest a very enjoyable 1300m or so of descent.
Basically we skied down the Trient Glacier from the hut (in death crust) before taking a right up and over the Col du Ecandies before skiing down the valley to Champex, where we walked into town and tried to work out where the bus to Bourge St Pierre would leave from.
Luckily we found the tourist office and the charming young swiss man told us "the bus stop is 100m on your right, and the next bus is in (looks at watch) 3 minutes." So we timed it perfectly!
From there we bused to our Hotel for the night where I slept the afternoon away and Andrew hitched back to the nearest ATM to get some francs (with the bus driver! who had left his bus but was driving back to town in his car).
Before a fantastic dinner at the hotel (which given how the decore would have been cheesy in the '80s when it was last redecorated) was a bit of a surprise. The other one was that there was horse steak on the menu and according to Andrew it was quite good (although the taste was described as like "beef steak crossed with good tuna without the fishy flavour"). Still not sure exactly what that means! But the Coq au Vin was pretty good too,
