La Barma - Pas du Chat - Cabane des Dix
- Distance: 10km
- Duration: (with breaks): 4h 15min
- Elevation gain/loss: 470m/120m
It’s day 7 and our hike should only take 4 hours (!!!) We slept long and took our time to prepare. I also woke up with a surprise – a slight pain in my ankle, the same ankle I’ve seriously sprained several years ago. Ok, we’ll take it easy today, no need to rush anyway.
Once we left the campground, we descended to a flat (say whaaaat??) road alongside Lac de Dix. That’s where we entered the kingdom of marmots. I’m not kidding, We’ve seen probably 30 of them, so cute.
After about an hour, our path left the road and climbed up leaving the turquoise lake behind us. As our destination is on the alternative path, instead of following a rocky path towards Arolla, we headed to the right towards snow and … other rocks.
For some reason we both moved super slow and felt low on motivation to push forward. Maybe it was the exhaustion from yesterday or maybe we didn’t feel like hiking when it was so short (the less you need to hike, the longer it seems – makes sense, right?…), I don’t know.
The conclusion is that we were total snails today, inching slowly with our houses on the backs. I was saving my Snickers for a hard day and here we are – sharing a Snickers and cursing at the trail.
My guiding app maps.me was telling me that it’s only 25min left until Cabane de Dix, our destination, but all I see in front of me is a mountain with snow, so where is the hut??
The trail did lead us to the top of that mountain while passing small patches of snow. Suddenly I forgot all the mountain-trail-hate as a spectacular Mont Blanc de Cheilon opened up before us in all of its glory with the hut looking so small sitting just below it. Wow. We’re going to sleep here tonight. Cool.
The hike ended up being around 4 hours just as planned, but we felt exhausted and in need for a shower. The guy from the hut told us to look for a red curtain outside.
Some red flags, but ok, we’re going to check it out. We found the curtain and the shower, all good. The only tiny detail was that the water was coming straight from the mountain via a long pipe. And no, it’s not heated and yes, mountain water is ice cold.
It was the quickest shower I’ve ever taken and I felt great after it. Maybe there is some magic in those crazy Wim Hof rituals after all.. But ok, it was a hot sunny day, I could not imagine myself going there in any other weather conditions.
Cabane de Dix was probably the highest place we slept at being located at the height of 2928m. Their supply can only be brought by a helicopter or on foot, so the staff need to be super efficient. They even grow their own herbs (parsley, basil, etc.) up there!
I loved staying in this hut. The cosiness, the friendliness of the staff, the views – everything made our stay very pleasant. We shared a room and dinner with three Swiss hikers who were super friendly and told us more about their country (I didn’t know salad is a thing in Switzerland). So if you doubt whether to veer off the regular trail and stay overnight in this hut – think no more.
Day 7 tips
- Vegetarians will be happy in Cabane de Dix - you can get a very tasty vegetarian half-board (I had a yellow curry with lentils 👌)