An exhilarating day began as 8 hardy souls (plus two 4-legged companions) awaited the 10:12 train at the Col de la Givrine. We joined two other hardy souls already in the train for the short trip to our starting point.
The hike began at the La Cure train station with just a small amount of snow on the ground and quite clement weather.
Attending were: Kobie, Mark2rs, Mark2ts, Mervyn, MichaelH, Nathan, PeterT, PeterS, Philip, Richard, Rob, Rocco, Ross, and Stephen. Excuses received spanned from a wishy-washy claim of lousy weather (fake news!), I’ll come only if it’s dry (which it was, so he participated) and a last minute abandon with no reason given but it was assumed to be a force-majeure.
When we arrived at the restaurant Chez Mamac to assess the recent fire damage, some of the more clairvoyant amongst us decided to don their snow shoes as the snow became a bit deeper.
Others preferred to wait until the snow was knee-deep.
One of the group members decided not to use his snow shoes at all and simply strategically hiked behind someone approximately his height who was kindly blazing the trail. This worked well until our friend missed a step and fell into a hole. Luckily for him a nearby mate came to his rescue or we may have lost him forever.
One member, with his vintage snow-shoes, struggled a bit because near the beginning of the day his shoe tightening strap broke. A fellow hiker helped find an adequate solution with a strap from his sack. Nonetheless continuing the hike with one shoe only somewhat tied to his snow shoe was a courageous endeavour and deserves recognition.
The snow was deep enough to cover the paths and there were a few discussions about which direction we should take but we managed to maintain cohesion and all 12 of us arrived at Pré du Four for a well earned refreshment pause.
After the pause, an alternate route was selected which took us past Le Grütli and through a lovely forest that was not part of the initial plan. It turned out to be an excellent choice.
Just before the restaurant we parted company with two members who descended directly to La Givrine rather enjoying a meal with us.
Lunch discussion subjects largely included the antics of the present USA president (fondly known as The Orange Monster). It seems that the group has lost interest in Scottish independence for the moment.
While we were replenishing our energy, our two 4 legged companions renewed their friendship with Moos, their host, and went frolicking outside in the snow.
Unfortunately all good things must come to an end and after a few beers and a delicious meal we decided to take the direct route back to the car park.
The day went very well: the weather cooperated, no injuries were incurred (although there was a helicopter that flew by to check on us) and we managed a distance of 9 km with a 360m climb.
