What a good decision yesterday proved to be. The clouds massed in the late afternoon & evening & it rained all night. We woke to see wet snow on the top 100m of the 2613m col. How slippery would that slatey path have felt today. Others in the hut chose to bale out to Venosc but it looked very Scottish to me. So we set off up to Col du Vallon 2531, which was just about exactly at the snowline. It was rather wet, muddy & slippery and complicated by a pastous, which came for a good sniff but finally let us past. We were preceded by the 2 men who followed us over Col de la Muzelle yesterday, & who had camped across the lac from the hut. At least one of them bore evidence of a muddy slide.
Zigzags down to the reserve at Lac Lauvitel, with cables protecting the lower part but not really essential. The rain came on again at the Lac so we lunched in a cave while the lads brewed up in the middle of the path under a tree. There was more down to La Danchere & les Gauchoirs, then a long walk on & off cycle tracks & a rather unappreciated diversion to Cascade do la Pisse before arriving in Bourg d'Oisans. Lodging at the Hotel des Alpes & dinner with two of our Norwegian friends.
