The first hour of the hike is flat along the Triente River, which is meltwater from the Triente Glacier. You could see the glacier up at the head of the valley from the very start.
I enjoyed the sound of the water over the rocks and around the boulders. It was early enough in the morning that the sun hadn't reached the valley floor.
These rivers come from melting ice from the glacier. Notice the large area of dry rock. That's where the glacier used to be. The glacier has been melting in summer much faster than it's been replenished by new snow in winter for the last thirty years or so. Thousands of towns and cities around the world rely on meltwater rivers like these for water. What will they do once the glaciers have melted away?
Years ago, a landslide destroyed the trail, so they put in a rope to hang onto while crossing this slanted muddy area. You can't see it in this photo, but this hillside just drops straight down hundreds of feet. Fun!
After another hour of steep hiking, we were getting higher up and closer to the rivers and the glacier. You could hear the sound of the roaring waterfalls the whole time.
Here's a short video of a closeup of the larger waterfalls of meltwater. Crazy how much water is coming off of this glacier every second. Sadly, youtube has murdered the quality of this video, but this at least give you an idea of how powerful this one is, and it's only one of several draining off all day and night.
For the last hour or so, the trail was steep enough that you could use your hands sometimes, and turned into nothing but rocks in places. If you're looking at this on a computer screen, you'll be able to see seven other hikers coming down the trail from above. The Fenetre d'Arpette, the top of the pass and high point of the hike, is over the ridge in that dip at the upper right corner.
Here's the receding "tongue" of the glacier up close.
We're high up enough to see the glacier and its meltwater streams from the side now.
Nearly there.
A couple of closer views.
I really wanted to go hike closer to all that ice.
Finally, made it to the "window." It never ceases to amaze what a huge new view you get by taking those last few steps to the top. A whole new series of valleys and ridges we hadn't seen until now.
All the way up and down the trail, there were trail runners. Of course, they're not running like on a flat surface, but they're hopping and dodging up and down the trail as fast as they can. Some people do the same trail over and over and time themselves, trying to get their best time. Of course, there are even races across the mountains every once in a while, with extreme athletes completing a series of connected trails like this one in the time it took us to do just one.
The way down is right here in front of us, but it's so steep going down that we couldn't see it. When people started hiking down, they disappeared from view after only a few steps.
The first hour or so on the trail down was steep, dry dirt mixed with sliding and rolling rocks.
If you squint, you can see four groups of hikers scattered along the trail leading down.
Our guide Mike working his way down.
A brief rest on the way down. You can see some other hikers picking their way across the boulders in the background.
After an hour picking our way between boulders, it seemed like we must be getting near the bottom. In fact, we were only a third of the way down.
Click here to see the hike after that, from the Mont Fort mountain hut to the Prafleury mountain hut.
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