Les Hauderes - Col du Tsate - Cabane de Moiry
- Distance: 17km
- Duration: (with breaks): 8h 15min
- Elevation gain/loss: 1890m/520m
The earliest start of the day – by 6:30 we were already leaving the camping. I woke up rested, but not in high spirits. For the first time I was not looking forward to another day of hiking – oh not again, I need to go all the way up and then all the way down… Now when I look back at that moment, I realise that it could have been the right time to just have a day off. Not something I planned though, so a good lesson for the next long hike.
As we passed a few villages, we noticed a rather bizarre architecture of the houses in this area. Most of them were sitting on wooden poles supported by rock plates that together looked like mushrooms. Didn’t look stable, but who are we to judge Swiss architecture??
It took us a while to find a breakfast spot as we searched for a bench. This search led us to climbing up more than planned (no benches!). Eventually we gave up and settled on a side of some shed. Another lesson for today – hiking with an empty stomach is not cool. Either get breakfast first thing in the morning or at least snack something until breakfast.
It seemed that the fatigue of late breakfast slowed us almost all the way to the pass, Col du Tsate (2864m). While the climb felt rather gradual, we took our time and pauses. Besides a few farms and cows the path was pretty empty all the way till the pass, which we reached around 10:00.
Edo found an awesome place to sit with a view and a shelter from the wind, which allowed us to rest a bit and observe the scenery we’ll be entering in a bit. We were leaving behind us a rather hostile landscape with rocks and scree everywhere and heading towards light blue glacier lakes. Did you say glacier?…
I honestly was caught off guard when a magnificent Moiry glacier icefall revealed itself around the corner while descending from the pass. For GoT fans – I consider this the closest real thing to The Wall. It is literally a crazy tall wall of ice. I was blown away by the view and the size, so impressive! And what’s awesome too – we’ll sleep in a cabane facing this wall as close as it gets.
While descending, Lac de Moiry also came into the view – what a colour! It looked like a sibling of Lac de Dix – a large blue water reservoir perched between mountains. We zigzagged down for a while until reaching the parking lot below the glacier, where we had lunch.
The weather was awesome and the place was busy with day visitors. I didn’t see anyone else carrying a backpack though. Does it mean we are the only ones doing the Haute Route today? I must say that so far this route is very quiet, especially compared with Tour du Mont Blanc (TMB).
Our final destination, Cabane de Moiry, was still 1.5h away, we couldn’t even see it from the parking lot yet, so the lunch was quick and then off to the trail. A gradual climb soon turned into a walk on a ridge, we even encountered a few sections with snow.
The last hour of the climb was an insanely steep zigzag with occasional chains assisting in more sketchy sections. We encountered a lot of day hikers scrambling down from the hut, which also made the hike a bit slower in narrow sections. It even felt as if we’re the only ones going up.
Finally around 14:00 the crowds were behind and we had the remaining climb for ourselves. It was really a tough climb and I had to do something to lift my spirits up. Nobody was around me and so I decided to sing to myself (not a singer here), which proved to be very effective and made a gruelling climb rather pleasant.
We arrived at the hut around 15:00, again super tired, but what a place to be! The hut is literally next to the icefall and the glacier river flowing from it with its massive cracks. A couple of minutes after our arrival it started raining – good timing!
This hut was probably the fanciest one I’ve been to so far – a brand new building with huge glass windows facing the glacier. We had a room for ourselves (jeey) and could spend some time just chilling, which we both really needed.
The rain continued for the rest of the evening and sadly we had no spectacular sunset, but we could still see (and hear) the glacier from time to time. Again, what a location!
Day 9 tips
- Good to keep in mind that besides a very simple snack place in the parking lot below the glacier icefall, there are no lunch opportunities once you leave the villages around Les Hauderes. Cabane de Moiry also closes for some time between afternoon service and dinner, so make sure to have your own snacks.
- To avoid the crowds descending from Cabane de Moiry, you can wait until ~ 15:00 to start climbing towards it. That way you’ll probably have most of the trail for yourself. If weather permits of course.