I am warning you all that I don't want to hear any negatives about the last two days. I hit the perfect tsunami of little mishaps that became a GRAND disaster. But all is good, and I am safe.
The bus from Champex left earlier than the information I found on the internet. I needed to catch a reasonably early bus to a train to another train to a Gondola since I was headed to Louvie Hut high in the mountains. An angel from that fabulous hotel gave me a ride to the train, and I was back on track. I had everything packed for the two days away from my suitcase. Up the mountains, I went by all mentioned modes of transportation. Amazing that you could start this high up and still have a major climb.
The weather was perfect, and my hike got off to a bit of a misadventure when I couldn't find the trailhead. I met two lovely English women who thought they knew where it was, and we went up. As we got higher, one of the women looked at her phone map again and realized it wasn't where she thought it was so I broke off in another direction. I had to go down and across and back up.
I found the trailhead, took lots of photos, and all was the adventure I had dreamed of. After several hours on the trail, it began to rain, not hard, but a tad more than a sprinkle. I came to a series of late snow-covered glaciers. I made it across the first one. Then, on the second one, I slipped, and down the glacier, I was flying. I managed to get my head up to see exactly where I was going and found I could steer myself to a series of large rocks before I crashed. I slid about 50 yards. This was way better than all the way down the glacier because I could not see the end of it.
I managed to climb back close to where I first slid, and down I flew. This happened three more times. I was getting good at steering this human sled. I decided that I needed to go around the glaciers, and I began traipsing over the large boulders of a rock slide. The glaciers seemed to go on forever, and getting across the large wet rocks and boulders was dicey at best. There had to be another way up the mountain because this was in a ski area. Nope - none.
By this time, it is five o'clock. I knew that I needed to be up on top of this mountain, and my phone map showed that I need to go back, and up to find the trail, but that was impossible. If I can just locate the trail, I will be okay. If I can just find the trail, it was my mantra from my first slide down the mountain. In frustration, I decided to climb up the side of this grass-covered side of the mountain. It was incredibly steep, and I kept grabbing clump after clump of grass, hoisting myself up. I was like a cat climbing the curtains. Sometimes, determination is a good thing.
I found the trail, thanked God, and went as fast as my little legs would carry me! Then I hit a glacier with big rocks, and the trail signs just ended. ENDED! It is about 9:00 p.m. when I sit down to rest and make some decisions. I keep looking at my phone trailmap, and I desperately needed to find where to go after wandering hopelessly through the area. No such luck.
At about 10:30, I hit the Emergency SOS, and I was immediately connected with emergency personnel. I always wondered if they actually work and they do. I was trying to tell the woman where I was, not that I really knew, when my phone died. I had used the map on it so much that I had run the battery down. OMG! By this time I had hiked 11 hours.
I know about hypothermia and these were the perfect conditions. I decided to stay put, knowing that I had at least notified emergency help plus when I didn't show up at the hut they would contact help. I did the best I could to find a spot out of the wind. I took off my wet gloves and wrapped myself in my big rain poncho and curled up into a ball, trying to preserve body heat. I should say that I sent up a number of prayers but for some reason I wasn't scared. Concerned - YES, but not scared. There are no bears and only a handful of wolves in Europe. I dozed a little but mostly I just tried to stay as warm as possible.
Around the first inkling of daylight, I heard helicopters. I got out my hiking sticks and anytime they seemed to be near, I held them up in a cross which is the sign of distress. I was pretty sure they saw me but then they sort of flew away. Come Back! Pretty soon, I saw two men coming towards me with some emergency gear. HALLELUJAH. I told them what happened and that I wasn't hurt just banged and bruised. And cold, I had been shivering most of the night. They were so nice they immediately packed me in some warm stuff and walked over to the flatest area. It was really small.
Let me say, I have always wanted to ride in a helicopter but this wasn't what I had in mind. The helicopter hovered above and dropped a sort of chair on a cable. Both men got on and sandwiched me in the middle and the helicopter lifted us up. This was kind of exciting. I don't really remember where we landed, but it was somewhere on hospital property. They wheeled me in and got me out of my wet clothes, and began trying to warm me up. That heated bed beat any bed I have ever been in.
Some very kind nurses and doctors treated my cuts and scrapes and bandaged me up. They tested my heart and blood pressure and made sure that I wan't having any problems. I had to tell them that my blood pressure is normally low so they wouldn't think I was in shock. I think that I was in the hospital for about three hours and they deemed me good to go.
(copied from internet)
When I finally got to Arolla, my last challenge was the hotel was about a quarter of a mile uphill. What a day! At least this hotel was so gorgeous.
Dinner was so good. My amuse bouche was a vegetable tarte and the salad had all sorts of pickled vegetables in it. They were almost sweet pickled and so different from anything I have ever had.
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