Day 3. Les Chapieux to Refugio Elisabetta. It had rained all night and sounded super windy up in the mountains, there was fresh snow on the high peaks, but it was starting to clear up by morning. Since we have the uphill section first we always tried to get up and going first thing so we could get as high as we could before the sun came out of the clouds or over the mountains and made it a much slower climb.
The first part of the morning was a gradual road walk up to La Ville des Glaciers - those buildings on the left hand side of this photo. Yep, but that is it. It had a dot on the map, but there is really nothing there.
Continuing on we stopped for a break at Refuge des Mottets with my new bff donkey. He came over to say hello while we were sitting there. After this the trail climbs steeply up to the France/Italy border.
On our next break there were a ton of sheep being herded all over the place. This guy and his sheepdogs got them all moved from one side of the trail to the other. It was quite fun to watch as those dogs are really good at their job.
Walking through the sheep
Col de la Seigne - The France/Italy border. Beautiful. And downhill for the rest of the day.
Lots of marmots
And the view from Rifugio Elisabetta. Online it had said that there was camping here so we were planning on doing that, but when we got there it turned out there was none. We didn't know, but we could have hiked on a little ways and found a campground, but we decided to stop early since the next Refuge was a ways away. We originally wanted to sleep in a room instead of the big bunkhouse room, but we were not eating dinner there since they didn't have a vegan option and apparently you cannot have a room without eating as well. Honestly I would have paid to just have the room and food and been fine with that, but whatever. The big bunkhouse was just this 3 story bunkbed that lined the one wall. They really cram the people in there. You get part of a twin size mattress. So Raymond was sleeping by the wall and I was on the crack between two mattresses. Not very comfortable with scratchy blankets I put down to try and cover the crack and flat pillows that were almost like having nothing. Good thing we had everything we needed! I didn't sleep very well since there were just so many people getting in and out of bed and such. And that is part of the reason why I like camping better. You can sleep as late as you want, people don't usually bother you, it is just so much nicer! The rooms were much nicer than where we slept so if you do go and are eating dinner there definitely splurge for a room (even though it is 6-8 people per room you get your own twin mattress, nice blankets and pillows).
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