Trekking From Chamonix To Zermatt - Walkers Haute Route - Day 8

This day felt almost as a holiday with just 12,3 km and 6 hours, 20 minutes hike. We really needed one easier day after all the efforts on three previous days. As a coincidence, it happened to be anniversary of Estonian reindependence day...

A small fun fact about this day: This was my last overnight in tent on this hike, because one of my tent poles decided to split in two! And we had one more week to hike with unpredictable weather conditions. Good luck to me! Now you think, I slept all the rest of my nights in hotels? Guess what... Okay, no spoilers, just keep reading my posts ;)

This was the second rainy day on our hike. It started with nice summer weather on campsite, but suddenly dark clouds appeared and the rain started. We planned to start the hike at noon, but weather forced us to start earlier. So we packed our camp together in hurry and started some minutes before 11 AM. It took us just 20 minutes to reach Arolla, 120 meters of vertical ascent from our campsite on bottom of the valley:

After another 30 minutes we could look back to camping ground from high on the slope:

The most of our first 4 km-s was a nice traverse on forested slope along the interesting trail:

We had to cross many streams in different sizes:

Of course there were very different warning signs near every crossing:

Eventually we arrived at very picturesque Lac Bleu! It deserves a special dedicated post, but not from me. Sooner or later somebody will do it, I'm sure about that! But I'll show you some pictures anyway:

Unfourtately camping is forbidden there, but we didn't need it anyway this moment. It's just to inform you, if you feel the desire to camp there!

After leaving the lake we made a fast descent through many interesting small villages with different style and historical buildings:

And there was another lake with much warmer water alongside of the road:

After crossing the road we continued our descent, there was a long way to the bottom of the valley:

There were many small towns and villages on the bottom of the valley, biggest of them was Les Hauderes:

Can you see those old buildings with legs here?

This is how locals avoid losing their houses by accideltal floods! The water is flowing by under the house...

And here is a back view our passed progress this day:

It wasn't raining anymore, but the sky was still menacing and I had no tent, remember?

After walking the last kilometers through all those villages we found the perfect place for wild camping and headed to nearby restaurant for celebration dinner. This was our national holiday, as I mentioned before:

I slept under bare sky again this night and guess what! It started raining and I was almost soaked by morning with all my stuff... I still survived and was able to continue next day :)

Thanks for reading, I really hope you liked and got inspired by my story :)

To be continued...