Ski touring the Haute Route - Day 7
Cabane de Chanrion - Otemma Glacier - Cabane des Vignettes
Taking a break on the glacier d'Otemma... do not remove the skis.
The morning decision means that we will be taking it easy, going on the Ottama glacier. This turned out to be an excellent decision, as we saw noone that day save for one lone guy sking the way down as we were going up.
After looking for a way to replace Christina's boot sole which got stolen in the morning rush, we have a short ski down from the cabane to the Charmotane valley, then up into a canyon, with the natives observing us from the upper ridges, more than once we considered circling the wagons, but in the end we did not need to, as they stayed peaceful and seemed to remain happy in their status as obeservers.
looking back the way we came on the Otemma glacier, emptiness
The Vignettes hut, i think the biggest of the trip, good thing that the toilets on the edge are closed in winter, otherwise i think a few people would have flown off with the wind we had.
a bit of time alone, away from the crazyness, Philippe takin some time off
Out of the canyon passing by a small frozen pond formed by a flow control dam we noticed some smoke signals, hopefully they are warning the Vignettes hut to cool the beer down.
From there up,a long straight gentle uphill on the Ottama glacier, beautiful weather, nice easy pace, lots of breaks and not much happening. Very lovely, only problem, there is no place to hide in case you want to go and do some resting, if you know what i mean.
We arrive at the Cabane des Vignettes rather early, thanks to another early start and we spend the afternoon, after the usual ròˆsti playing monopoly ,commenting on the interesting location of the hut and the restrooms, and trying to find creative way to replace Christina's missing sole, not soul......
We have a nice dinner accompanied by a very good local wine, a Coup de Grisou, i think. The Cabane is big and there are many people, we have a nice dinner and early to bed, as we know that we will need to be very early (even by our new standards) underway.
looking up the way to go...exept for us, emptiness....