DAY 9_CABANE DE MOIRY TO ZINAL

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DAY 9: CABANE DE MOIRY (9268 FT) TO ZINAL (5495 FT)

(Stage 10; via Col de Sorebois, 9341 ft)

Because Cabane de Moiry is so close to Glacier de Moiry, many guests got up very early to head off for a full day of glacier travel. We woke up at 6am, not quite an alpine start, and headed downstairs for breakfast. We chatted some more with the German climbing guide at breakfast over muesli, yogurt, bread, cheese, butter, jam, juice, and tea. When we left the cabin at 7:45am, the snow still had a icy layer on top, which made the descent very slow and mentally taxing. However, that did not stop a couple trail runners, Ollie, and other more experienced people from quickly blowing past us on the trail.

We passed the glacier parking lot and continued north along the eastern side of the valley. The sunny and cool weather was perfect, and the views to our left of Val de Moiry and Lac de Moiry were breathtaking. After some exhausting hiking on the approach to Col de Sorebois, we stopped for lunch at a grassy overlook around noon. We had ham & cheese sandwiches (surprise!), apples, chocolates, gingerbread, and refreshing lemon tea from Cabane de Moiry. Lunch gave us much-needed energy for the final push to Col de Sorebois (9341 ft), which turned out to be the least technical and most snow free of the eight passes we had done so far.

The views of the snow-capped Weisshorn (14780 ft) were wonderful and improved as we descended into Val de Zinal past a ski-lift station and along knee-jarring switchbacks that were occasionally littered with cow pies. We arrived in Zinal (5496 ft) around 4pm, checked into Hotel le Trift, and got a small but clean room with a window that overlooked a church courtyard and Mt. Besso (12034 ft) in the distance. We did some laundry, bought some groceries at a store across the street (ran into Ollie), and withdrew cash at an ATM.

Most restaurants in town were closed because it was the low season, so we settled on Le Ferme restaurant for a fondue dinner. The fondue had cheese, lots of wine, mushrooms, bacon, and tomatoes, and was served with small potatoes and bread. The small bottle of house red wine (Dole) helped to cut through the grease; we saved half a bottle for our picnic lunch tomorrow. We lounged around the restaurant a while longer with two herbal teas, and said hello to the 6 Americans from Connecticut when they wandered into the restaurant. Our hostess at the hotel called ahead to Hotel Weisshorn and made a reservation for us for tomorrow night. We went to bed around 9:30pm.

8.7 miles, 8.25 hrs.