Pete's Blog - Week 4(c)
The refuge was warm ( a good fire ) and friendly. There was also an excellent concert given by a local violinist, who later played his own music to accompany a slide show of the Vanoise.
We left the next morning, for a long day, with blue skies again on a steep descent through forest into Modane ( 1066m ). Although Modane has road and rail tunnels to Italy and massive hydro electric schemes on the Arc, the town centre is very pleasant. We now had the long trek up to the refuge du Mont Thabor ( 2500m ). The walk through forest and along the road along a pilgrimage route to La Chapelle de Notre-Dame du Charmaix was spiritually uplifting (!) and when we arrived at the chapel built precariously above a deep gorge there was a group visiting it, so we were able to have a look around ( normally it is shut ). We needed all the spiritual help we could get as the next section was along an old military road which had recently been dug up for drainage works. It was hot, steep, smelly and fly ridden! At last we reached some old military block houses ( 1664m ) and gained views of our destination. Cont - 4d