Nathalie and Jean-Rémi, my couchsurfing hosts, invited me and Lucy to go hiking in the Alps for a weekend with a bunch of their friends (there were about 20 of us total, including Jean-Rémi's adorable 8 year-old brother, Paul-Hugo). I also spontaneously invited Viven, a guy who I had met up with for a drink through CS (and who is now my boyfriend :D). Since he has a car, he drove me and Lucy...it was about 2 1/2 hours to the small town of Bourg Saint-Maurice, not far from the Italian border. It was a beautiful drive with gorgeous mountains covered in autumn foliage.
We arrived slightly ahead of the other cars, who had to make stops in a few towns along the way to pick up friends, so we stopped at this cool abandoned building in the middle of nowhere to wait for them. We explored it for a bit, and after the others arrived they informed us that it had been a hotel, situated here because of its proximity to a thermal spring. Sure enough, next to the river we found a pool of hot water that fed into the stream.
After lunching on sandwiches, we started hiking. We were all bundled up in the beginning, but after only five minutes of climbing we stripped down to one layer.
Here's a view from early on in the hike...
Lucy and Viv...
Me and Viv...
It was only a two-hour hike up to the refuge, but we were at a pretty high altitude and there were some pretty steep passages. There were patches of snow, enough for us to have a snowball fight and make snow angles.
We arrived at the Refuge Croix du Bonhomme late-afternoon. The refuge is a huge building that has several rooms, each with about 20 bunk-beds, but since it was off-season there were only two rooms open and we had the whole place to ourselves. There wasn't any heat, just a wood-burning stove, so we spent lots of time bundled up and huddled around the stove. There was also no running water in the building, so we had go to to a spigot outside.
Paul-Hugo helping to chop wood...
It was a pretty incredible sunset...
After watching the sunset, we went inside and had a huge fondue for dinner...
I ate way too much cheese, but it was soooo delicious.
We dragged mattresses into the main room to sleep because the dormitory upstairs was freezing. The next day was gray and cold...it even snowed a bit. We had breakfast (tea, bread, jam, and the 8 pounds of clementines that Lucy and I had bought for everyone) and then most of the group went for a hike but a few of us opted to stay in where it was (somewhat) warm and hang out. We headed back down the mountain mid-afternoon and got back to Lyon around 8 pm. The hot shower I took when I got home was one of the most satisfying I've taken in awhile.
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