Another Great Day

It seems that we all slept OK even though we were short of "personal space". A decent breakfast and everyone was on the trail by 7:30. The light drizzle was done by the time we were ready to go, although there were some low clouds hanging in the valleys (including the one that our cabane was in). Not to worry, though, as we immediately headed uphill to our first pass of the day. We were above the clouds there, and were treated to incredible views, mostly above the clouds. As we descended and as the cloud cover burned off, we gained views of Lac des Dix which is 5 km long and apparently created by the biggest hydro dam in Switzerland. The walk along the lake was one of the longest flat sections on the entire trip. The moost challenging part was working our way through a herd of cattle on the track. At the end of the lake we started up. We continued to faithfully follow our guidebook which was published in 2007. Apparently the recommended route from the day is no longer the preferred route. Oh well - off we went with the 3 Brits and the Calgary couple following behind. It had a bit of a sketchy grunt uphill to get around some old avalanche debris but was otherwise lovely. We were in pretty wild, mostly rocky, terrain all day with no signs of civilization. Lots of glaciers in view almost all day. As we climbed up to our second pass of the day we came to understand the meaning of the term "unrelenting". I had forgotten to take iPhone pictures to download today, but took a few at the top of that second pass (see below). From the top of that pass we had our first glimpse of the Matterhorn, although the peak was obscured by clouds. Apparently it will be about 4 days before we see it again. Then it was the endless (about 900m) downhill into the small village of Arolla. Our total climbing for the day was 770m and our total downhill was 1445m. It was a late night for us; Tami made it to about 9:30 and Sue might see double digits on the clock.