-
Camino a Santiago Day 1: Saint Jean Pied de Port to Roncesvalles
Distance: 16 miles (25km) Ascent: 1400m (4,600 ft) Descent: 650m (2,130 ft) Steps: 33,479 Calories burned: 1488 Where to begin? I can barely think I’m so tired. Here I am, icing my feet and knees, while trying to get some nourishment in, wondering how I’m supposed to be up tomorrow by 8am in time to drop off my bag for the courier service. Have I mentioned I walked this stage on two hours sleep? Jet lag and nerves are a wonderful thing. Day one on the Camino a Santiago is the hardest of the entire French Way. If you go all the way to Roncesvalles in one day (which many…
-
TMB Day 6: Rifugio Bonatti to La Fouly
Distance: 13.06 miles (21km) Ascent: 3,020 feet Descent: 4,403 feet Highest Point: 8,457 feet Today we left our idyllic Italian mountain refuge behind, and crossed into Switzerland. Clocking in at 13 miles, it was the longest day of our trek so far. First, it was down the splendidly beautiful Val Ferret and then up the aptly named Col Ferret. At the top was the “border.” The crossing, as ever, was very official: a pile of rocks with the letter “I” on one side of the rock and an “S” on the other. I did pull out my passport and showed it to the rock just in case 😉 It was…
-
TMB Day 5: Courmayeur to Rifugio Bonatti
Distance: 7.86 miles (12.64 km) Ascent: 3,300 feet (1,005m) Descent: 784 feet (238m) Highest Point 6,953 feet (2,119m) Not going to lie. Today sucked. Like big time. Until it didn’t. The first two hours out of Courmayeur can only be described as my own little corner of hell. Climbing shockingly is not my thing. And yes, I get that if you’re trekking in the Alps you’re always going to be going either up or down. But steep climbs at the beginning of the day, when I haven’t had a chance to warm up are always bad for me. The day before yesterday was the same. And just as then the…
-
TMB Day 4: Chapieux to Courmayeur
Distance: 8.53 miles (13.72km) Ascent: 2,534 feet (772m) Descent: 2,704 feet (824m) Highest elevation: 8,234 feet (2,509m) Leaving France behind, crossing the border into Italy and peach pie. This is pretty much all I remember. OK. Not quite. I’m writing this five days later, which makes it easier to block out the tough bits, and remember just the good parts, which usually is how it happens. In reality this was one of our easier days. The beginning and end felt like we were cheating as there were bus rides involved. The first was necessitated by a change in the refuge normally used by our travel operator (which as a result…
-
TMB Day 3: Les Contamines to Chapieux
Distance: 12.17 miles Elevation Gain: 4,291 ft Elevation loss: 3,080 ft Max Elevation: 8,169 ft Calories Burned: 1,735 Epic. Legendary. Mind-boggling. These are all superlatives we tend to overuse these days. It’s unfortunate because they tend to lose their meaning. Today was one of those days that defies description. On paper it looked like a very difficult day. And it was. On the menu were the climbs of Col de Bonhomme and Col de la Croix de Bonhomme. But it was a manageable sort of difficult, without the super steep gradients of days one and two. And honestly we were stopping for so many Kodak moments, we didn’t lack for…
-
TMB Day 2: Les Houches to Contamines
Distance: 11 miles Ascent: 2,000 ft Descent: 3600 ft Calories burned: 1700 It’s nearly 10pm on Day 2 and I’m not going to lie. This will be a short entry. I’m exhausted. Every fiber in my body is begging for sleep. It’s been yet another beautiful day. So different from yesterday. We started once again with a cable car ride. This time from the Village of Les Houches to the trailhead. For many people this is Day 1 of the TMB, which honestly I don’t understand. Yesterday being as utterly mind-boggling as it was, why would you cut it off? Today was gorgeous, but in a different way. A lot…
-
TMB Day 1: Chamonix to Les Houches
Distance: 7 miles Elevation gain: 2,675 feet Elevation loss: 5,900 feet Calories burned: 2,300 What a day. There is so much I want to say. Not sure how far I’ll get, because frankly I’m dead. Didn’t train much, if at all for this, which, well, I may pay for in future days. I didn’t speak of this trip much beforehand, because, unlike the Everest Marathon where I had more than a year to look forward to it and plan, I honestly didn’t really believe this would happen until I actually set foot on the plane. Probably explains the lack of motivation to train too. Let’s just chalk it up to…
-
She Ventures Goes Backpacking
So this is what it feels like to carry 35lbs of weight on your back. I have to say, it was that single idea that worried me the most when I signed up for this 5-day trip to the North Cascades in Washington State. Forget the fact that I pretty much have no experience with camping, it was the idea of carrying a heavy pack up and down mountain passes for miles on end that concerned me. Especially seeing as I signed up only four weeks in advance and pretty much had no training time. It would, I knew, come down to how good my base fitness level was. And…
-
Time to Start Venturing Again
It’s been a long road. And a long year. But life goes on. Back in the air and back venturing, 2020 style
