Wow! What a day, but more about that in a moment. I had a mostly sleepless night last night. I was wide awake until at least 3:15 am, falling asleep sometime thereafter, and waking up at 6:06 this morning. Anyone who has followed  my blogs over the years knows how difficult sleeping is for me in a tent. Last night was a bad reminder of that. 

After packing up this morning Daniel and I walked to a small bakery near the campsite, bought some sandwiches, coffee and drinks, and then started out on our hike. Daniel always gives me a morning brief on what we are doing for the day in terms of distance, difficulty of the terrain and elevation gain and loss. Normally, he is quite accurate. Today, not so much as he indicated our hike should be similar to yesterday, but with an additional elevation gain of about 700 feet. That turned out to be accurate, but what we did not know was that there was a race event on the TMB today from a starting point near our campsite to Charmonix.  And, there were 2,000 runners on the same trail as we TMB hikers. It was CRAZY!!!!! Initially, the path was wide enough to accommodate everyone, but as we began the steep climb up the mountain, the path became a narrow trail, filled with rocks, gravel and tree roots. 

For those of us hiking it quickly became a logistical challenge to figure out how to stay in the lineup of runners, having to maintain their pace with heavy backpacks on our backs, and then quickly finding a tiny spot to jump out of the line to catch our breath, then jump back in line without hitting or disrupting other runners. We did this while climbing over 7,000 feet in elevation in pretty hot conditions. Daniel reach the trail summit quite some time before me, but I was pleased to have done as well as I did. One runner told me that I should have entered the race as she thought I was making good progress. It was a nice compliment but I am sure she was just being kind. 

After eating some lunch at the summit, we had to jump back in the queue of runners to now do the same thing down the other side of the mountain, though by this point it was definitely the slower runners who were making their way past us. 

I think Daniel enjoyed the chaos more than I did today. There was just no relaxation and taking in the sites as we have done up to this point. It is our understanding that there will be another race tomorrow, though we are unclear as to whether the runners will mingle with us or not. And, on Saturday there is a race around the entire Mount Blanc Trail, of which the record is just over 19 hours. That is so insane I cannot wrap my head around it. To know how difficult and challenging the terrain has been for us over nine days, with three to go, and to realize that some people can run this trail in less than 24 hours…..I just can’t imagine how physically and mentally fit these runners have to be! 

After 8.5 hours we made it to our campsite which is at the end of a small village called Le Peuty. Looking up from our tents we can see a large glacier and we are surrounded by mountains on all four sides. The sun has now dropped behind a mountain and the air in cooling quickly. My next door neighbor tonight is Sven, from Norway, and we have had some good conversation while setting up my tent. Time now to figure out what to eat for dinner. Tomorrow we will be facing the threat of rain and potentially thunderstorms with heavy downpours. So, we are keeping our fingers crossed. 

And, in closing, Daniel’s very high tech and expensive Garmin watch said at the end of our hike today that he needs 66 hours of rest for his body to recover. We begin again in 14 hours.