Backpacking the Haute Route : Day 10 – Grimentz to Zinal

Today’s hike was only an estimated 4 hours long but with heavy elevation changes. Getting lost and not hiking much the day before was nice for our injuries. We thought with an easy day today maybe we could get rid of them. We ate breakfast and caught a short bus ride from Grimentz to Lac de Moiry. Lac de Moiry is a lake that sits at 7,400 feet and is a grayish blue due to glacial clays dissolved in the water. The Barrage de Moiry is the dam that creates the lake which is 485 feet tall.

After admiring the lake for a while, we started up the pass. It was steep switchbacks carved into green pastures with wildflowers. After a few minutes, we came across a sign that warned us of angry cows protecting their calves so we went around the few that were standing in the trail. They didn’t seem to mind us at all. About halfway up, we stopped to get some drone footage for our video, but really to take a break. We trudged upward for another hour to the top of the pass. Once there, we experienced the most beautiful view of the Haute Route so far.

The walk down was steep and it only took about an hour to get to the ski lift. Once there, there were three ways down. The first was to walk, second to take the ski lift, and third to take a scooter. Of course, we chose the scooter, but first, there was paperwork to fill out. More choices – French or Dutch and we chose French. We figured out where to put our names and just guessed at the rest. When the gentleman came back with the helmets and saw our forms he laughed and said that’s good enough. Now he wanted some collateral and asked for one of our passports. With reservations, we gave him Nuthin’s. Once the formalities were out of the way, he took us outside and tried to describe some of the dangers of riding a scooter down the side of a mountain. One of the dangers was electric fences that crossed over the trail. He couldn’t think of how to describe them so he just kept shaking his body and saying, “Bzzzzz!”

A little nervous, we put our helmets on, strapped on the GoPro and off we went. The trail was a rocky service road for the ski lifts which switchbacked steeply down the mountain to Zinal. After a minute I looked back and Nuthin was lagging behind looking terrified. I didn’t realize that she had never ridden a scooter with front and back brakes before. After a brief description of which brake was which, all was well. We sped down the hill reaching estimated speeds of 35 to 45 miles per hour while dodging hikers and electric fences. It took about an hour and fifteen minutes to reach the bottom and we never had to push with our feet once. We returned the scooters and at the bottom of the ski lift and thankfully they returned Nuthin’s passport.

After, we walked to our hotel which was located only a few blocks from the bottom of the ski lift. The grocery store was next door so we went grocery shopping for the next two days lunches. After that, we relaxed on our balcony overlooking a beautiful construction site of a new hotel. Dinner was at 7 pm, it was four courses this time. The first course was prosciutto and melon followed by tuna tartare. The main course was a 14-inch personal pizza of your choice. Dessert was freeze-dried ice cream that melted in your mouth like pop rocks topped with unsweetened whip cream. After dinner, we went straight to bed knowing that the hike tomorrow was going to be long and strenuous.