Passing the Pass: Martigny to Aosta

The Great St Bernard Pass is a very significant part of the Via Francigena. It is supposed to be 1000km from Canterbury. It is the figurative halfway point of the route. It marks the crossing into the final country. It is the highest point of the journey at 2,469m or 8,100ft (for reference, Ben Nevis stands at 1,345m or 4,413ft).

There is a remarkable symbolism that this highest point comes at the halfway mark. It seems to be a prop which the route dangles from on either side. Once you cross the Pass it is, so to speak, downhill to Rome. (You do actually have to go up the not inconsiderable Apennines but that is for another post.)

The Pass is one of the things Francigena pilgrims most frequently talk about. It poses additional complications because, for vast portions of the year, snow and ice makes the pass totally unpassable without quite serious specialist gear. I know pilgrims who had attempted to make the crossing a few weeks before me and had been forced to take the tunnel route, via bus, because it was too dangerous.

It is a hugely historic route. One of the most popular for reaching Italy right up until the tunnel was constructed. It was Napoleon’s famous route for the Second Italian Campaign. The most famous image of him. There are even signs of the pass having been used since the Bronze Age. It is as old as the hills.

It had been something that had been on my mind for a long while. When I started the pilgrimage, I had given up some physiotherapy I was having for knees that had been giving me problems for a few years. I wasn’t sure they were going to be up to the ascent and descent.  I had also been carrying thermal layers for the preceding month and a half in expectation of the cold.

That is all to say that the Pass is filled with meaning in a way that other stretches of the road aren’t. The eighty or so kilometres from Martigny to Aosta are supposed to be more important than the same distance through French farmland, for example.

So, as I arrived in Martigny I gazed up to the peaks with a mixture of trepidation and excitement. I had been creeping up to them for two weeks and now the ascent would begin. First, though, I would collect a new walking companion who was to join me for this difficult passage.

Ed’s plane had been severely delayed. I think it was a combination between inclement weather and a French strike. Anyway, it resulted in him arriving in Martigny after midnight. We had considered beginning our walk the following day but decided it would be best to take a day of at least half-rest so we didn’t feel rushed whilst heading up the mountains.

Ed was the first familiar face I had seen in seven weeks. He is probably the person I know best in the world. We have been friends since we were fifteen years old and have significantly formed each other’s personalities. Our conversations function in already anticipating the other’s response. It is like talking to a version of yourself. Anyway, I was glad to see him.

He had come with a ‘care package’ that my mum had sent to him. It contained blister plasters and energy bars but most importantly a specific brand of hair conditioner I had requested. There are, indeed, many ways to Rome and some, I had decided, involved carrying enough hair conditioner to arrive in silken-locked-style.

The next morning we had a bit of a lie in. We were staying in a dormitory on a campsite in Martigny and had been awake into the early hours catching up over a bottle of wine.

I thought it was probably best for us to do some walking to warm up. There is a train that runs from Martigny to Chamonix called the Mont Blanc Express.  I’m a big fan of the Shelley poem and had been hoping to see the mountain from the route. The Rhône valley was, however, obscuring. So, I suggested that we cross the border and go for a short walk in France.

We took the train which slowly wound its way out of Martigny, through a tunnel and then out into a neighbouring valley. It wasn’t especially express. The scenery, however, was fairly spectacular. Although we were somewhat distracted by the fact I had forgotten to take my passport and were googling laws regarding the Schengen area.

We needn’t have worried, passing into France without a single check. Chamonix is nestled at the base of the highest Alps. I think its a particularly popular place in winter and it hadn’t quite hit the peak summer season yet.

Surprised to be back in France with non-Swiss prices, we had lunch at a bar before picking a fairly non-specific route through some nearby hillsides.

I don’t want to talk too much about watching Mont Blanc or the fiercely impressing surrounding peaks; I’m planning a post about them and the Romantic imagination so you’ll have to wait to read my thoughts on them there. Suffice to say, for now, that my breath was taken away often.

We headed South from the town and began to climb steeply up the edge of a valley. Overhead a cable car was zipping a few passengers up to the top of a mountain. We plodded slowly.

We talked about being at crossroads in our lives. Facing a metaphorical crossroads, I had decided to avoid it by walking a real road. The time will come soon, though, when I have to return to real world and that imaginary place and choose direction. Are the decisions about the path in my real-world-pilgrimage more imaginary, then? How does metaphor work again? I’m getting all mixed up.

The path we had chosen that afternoon left a woodland and began to zigzag up a steep, exposed slope. After about half an hour the effects of past avalanches and scree collapses made the track quite tough going. We turned back and headed back to the town on a slightly different route.

Descending we returned to the forest. There was a tree that had had its bark stripped. It made for a beautiful pattern that we were both struck by.

We had a drink in town and watched as tourists walked by. The whole town was tourists, really. It was very much a resort. Is beauty a well that can be drunk dry? I’m not sure what I had been expecting. Maybe Shelley.

We returned to the station. The train took about an hour and a half and the day was already mostly spent. The return journey was just as spectacular. It was perhaps just as remarkable how many of the passengers seemed totally non-plussed.

Back in Martigny we bought provisions for the next couple of days, cooked and prepared for an early start. Walking feels a lot harder in the afternoon so I was keen to get as much done as early as possible. I felt like I was a shepherd. An inexperienced novice Sherpa trying to make suggestions from a position of ignorance. I had no idea how difficult or otherwise the climbing would really be.

We were walking just after 7 o’clock. Our plan was to get just beyond Orsieres, 20km away, and pitch the tent for the night.

The day started fairly easily. The first few kilometres were spent heading south, slightly uphill but still very much in the valley floor. There was a jutting suburb just to the north of Martigny that we passed through.

Leaving buildings we mounted the valley side. The path became narrow and steep. There is a road that runs close by the river but if you want to avoid the traffic, the tricky footpath is fairly obligatory.

I feel like the old pilgrim path must have followed the valley floor: there were points on our route where bridges had been built into the rock face because the path had fallen away.

The path frequently was over sloping slabs of metamorphic rock that was resistant to the erosion of feet. It meant that getting a solid footing could be tricky at times. I was less capable than Ed: struggling at times to balance with my backpack.

There was a lot of climbing and then rapidly descending. We were often giving up height we had worked hard to gain.

Nonetheless, we kept up an impressive pace for the gradient. Soon, the valley turned to the East and we descended from its side, passed through vineyards, crossed a river and entered the village of Les Valettes. We climbed up the valley’s south side and began to climb in a similar way.

There were yellow horizontal diamonds which guided the path. The route wasn’t always clear, obscured by the trees and the rocky footpath. What looked like a path could quickly be changed by a few footsteps into something completely impassable. I led us astray once or twice but on the whole the yellow markers guided our way. I wasn’t using the guidebook.

In the woodland, Ed found a ram’s skull held in a metal bowl. Had the flesh been removed in situ or was the head pre-stripped when it arrived? The omen seemed unclear.

The path would occasionally duck closer to the river and meet shallower slopes. Here we found vast meadows of wild flowers.

At the next village, Sembrancher, I suggested that we stop for a coke. It was about another 7km to Osieres. The sun was out and I was getting quite hot.  The sugar and caffeine was appreciated; I had suggested Ed eschew his usual choice of the diet version.

We continued in good spirits, discussing the future. We passed through more woodland and more meadows: the same landscapes, recapitulated. There was a short winding path that once more had the stations of the cross next to them. I explained that I had frequently encountered them at points of difficult ascent.

We were at that moment discussing the final portion of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. I don’t think I have ever fully understood it but it has always fascinated me. The work constructs a deliberately watertight argument using a specific logical method. It is about quantifying experience and expression with this logic. It then blows a fairly enormous hole in the whole argument with the following admission:

There is indeed the inexpressible. This shows itself; it is the mystical.

I’ve spent a while thinking about the mystical and inevitably, as predicted by Wittgenstein, found myself in a bit of trouble trying to explain it. There have been showings.

We arrived into Orsieres. It was a small town with a restaurant and a train station and a shop. A waiter asked us where we had come from that day. He made waves with his hands and told us the next day would me easier: more ‘progressive’.

We sat by the train station and rested. I thought we should try and go another five kilometres to take the edge off the next day but what the waiter had said had slightly softened me. I felt relaxed and confident that we’d make the Pass. The day had been challenging but by no means impossible.

We did a shop and bought enough food for lunch the next day. We sat and ate our lunch for that day and had a beer each. After a leisurely break, we left the comfort of habitation and returned to the climb.

The waiter had been right. The path began to climb directly and showed no signs of descending. We hit 1000m and then 1100m before too long at all. It was all on a quiet tarmac road that curved up the valley side fairly steeply. The afternoon sun beat down on us. The beers were maybe a bad idea.

We walked for about an hour and then the road gave way to a track for a brief while. I suggested we find somewhere to camp near the trees. We set about looking for somewhere flat enough to pitch the tent. This is actually quite difficult in the Alps.

We found the flattest spot we could and laid out the ground sheet. We attempted a lie down. It was almost impossible not to roll.

I decided I could level the ground with moss. This would double as a mattress since we only had one camping mat. We got to work gathering moss in shopping bags. It seemed to be working and did make for a genuinely comfortable bed. It took eight bags of moss until I was satisfied it was tolerably flat.

Then we cooked and opened a bottle of wine we had bought at the supermarket. It was one of the cheapest ones they had but tasted pretty good after a long day’s walking. My little stove was overflowing with pasta for two.

In the night, unfortunately, the moss proved ineffective. After a couple of hours it had been squashed almost totally flat leaving us with the original gradient of the slope. Rolling occurred. At about 3am I had to tell Ed to move back to his half as it was completely empty and I was being held in place by the wall of the tent.

In the morning neither of us had slept well. We groggily ate our breakfast and got ready for the day. The moss hadn’t been the only thing to be squashed in the night: our baguette for lunch was perfectly flat. A surprisingly hilarious sight.

We were walking by eight and continued to slalom up the road that we had ducked away from the previous evening. It crept up and so did our altitude.

More meadows. We tried to determine whether they had the same composition of flowers. Maybe a few more of one kind than another. A bit more purple.

There were a few more villages we passed through, all getting increasingly sparse. A farmer who was herding his cattle slowed us down. Up another steep side of a cliff and then across a fast-flowing river.

The sun was continuing to shine brightly and everything was a lively green. I thought that perhaps the snow had all melted. I was sure we wouldn’t have any difficulty.

We continued on, passing through some pasture. We both were shocked by an electric fence that seemed to have a poorly insulated handle. It was my first jolt after many encounters.

After climbing for at least four hours we reached the village of Bourg-St-Pierre. A lot of people rest at that village and then attempt the final twelve kilometres of the climb the next day. There is a hotel called the ‘Bivouac Napoleon’.

We had another coke at a strange sort of service station-cum-cafe and bought a new loaf of bread for our lunch. Neither of us were particularly keen on making sandwiches from flat baguette. Instead, we tore and ate it then.

I had told Ed that there were two ways up to the Pass. The path and the road. I knew the road had been cleared but I was keen to do as much of it on the footpath as we could manage. I was becomingly increasingly sure that all the snow would have melted anyway.

On the way out of the village we played eye-spy. We had forgotten how hard it is. “It could be literally anything you can see.”

The sun was only getting hotter. The path began to get steeper. The games stopped. I was finding it difficult to concentrate on climbing and spying. We passed a patch of snow that was mostly covered with dirt.

We climbed up to a reservoir that controlled the water flow for the whole river below. It was strangely empty and looked quite desolate. There were some men fishing at the edge which enhanced the post-apocalyptic vibe.

I looked down to my kindle which usually hangs around my neck (it is my guidebook). It wasn’t there. I had left it further down the hill when I’d gone to the toilet by the side of the road.

I removed my bag, left it with Ed, and headed quickly down the hill, running at times. It was actually very satisfying to move unencumbered. I had retrieved the kindle and was back in just over half an hour. I had re-passed the slump of dirty snow.

We passed round the vast but dwindling resevoir, descending on its South-West side. At that point we could see the road. We had about eight or so kilometres left to do. We decided to remain on the path, passing a footbridge that would have led us to the road and a more certain ascent.

The trickiest thing at that point was the numerous streams that passed over the path. They required some careful navigation and calculated leaping to avoid getting wet feet.

One on the things about the pass is that you follow the valley up. This means, as I have described, following its bends. You can’t, then, ever see where you’re aiming for. This is also because a pass is a pass and not a summit. You’re actually looking for the lowest point on the horizon. The intention isn’t to attain an achievement but to make progress through the mountains.

And making progress we were. We had lost a little time because of my faulty memory but were still doing okay. We passed over another small peak and saw around the corner. There, the path was undoubtedly still covered with snow. There was a small slide blocking our way that we felt we could cross.

We kicked our boots into the snow and carefully climbed across it to rejoin the path on the other side. It wasn’t particularly easy and didn’t feel too safe so we decided to rejoin the road at the next opportunity.

We stopped for lunch. We put our fleeces on, the air having chilled considerably. We were both glad of the leavened bread.

The gradient had, I think, increased because we had slowed our pace a little. I was a little surprised that there were still five kilometres to go: I had thought it was less. It would take us about an hour and a half.

The road wound its way up with frequent hairpin bends. Occasionally cyclists would pass us heading down. Although the road had been cleared the border between Switzerland and Italy wouldn’t open for cars for another few days.

Clouds moved overhead and a breeze struck up. If I had been alone or it had been a couple of degrees darker or colder, it would have been a very unfriendly place. There were huge walls of snow either side of the road. I was stupid to have thought that it might have melted.

The final hour crept by slowly. I was looking at the map and counting the hairpins we had left to do. We rounded the corner and saw a dip between two peaks. “I think that that’s it,” the idiot Sherpa said.

Still another forty or so minutes of creeping up tarmac. Right at the top there was some shattered rock on the road. Evidence of a dangerous tumble.

Finally, we glimpsed buildings. Another few minutes and we were at the Pass. At the non-summit is a hospice run by an order who provide accommodation for travellers. In the past, they had bread the famous dog breed as a rescuer for those stranded in the snow.

Within minutes of arriving at the Pass we were in the hospice being poured bowls of tea from a large metal mug by Frederic, one of the brothers. We both heaped sugar into the bowls. I think we both drank four each.

It had been a slightly longer day than we had expected but we had arrived. There hadn’t been any accidents and neither of us were too exhausted. That being said, Ed did immediately fall asleep on reaching his bed and didn’t wake until dinner at 6:30pm. I went to Vespers, which was surprisingly busy for a mountain monastery.

When dinner arrived we met six other pilgrims at the table. Four were from the Netherlands and had travelled from there, one on a bike. Two were from France and were starting their pilgrimage at the pass. The food was hearty and I served myself several times. I kept adding strawberry syrup to the cold spring water.

After dinner we left the hospice to see what we could see at the Pass. When we had arrived we had headed straight for shelter.

Unsurprisingly, there was very little there. On the Swiss side there is a museum opposite the hospice. On the Italian side a hotel and a restaurant. Amazingly, google maps told me that one of the restaurants was open. We walked the two hundred metres across the border and walked round the edge of a frozen reservoir to the place. The lights were on and we tentatively entered.

To the left was a family living room and to the right a restaurant dining room. I asked if they were open and they replied that they weren’t but we could have a drink. We both had a red wine and were suitably impressed that we’d managed to find a bar on the top of the mountain. The wind blowed cold outside and it was getting dark. We were, however, totally safe. We finished our drinks and returned to the hostel. We were sharing a dorm with one of the Dutchmen and didn’t want to disturb him.

In the morning I was entertained by the fact that the alarm clock was a fading into the corridor of gentle music. I thought it sounded a bit like Enya. Then, by the time the music had reached full volume ‘Orinoco Flow’ had come on. It is one of mine and Ed’s favourite songs. We have a semi-choreographed dance routine that we performed to no-one in the hospice corridor.

After the impromptu theatrics we returned to the dining room and filled up on coffee, bread, and jam. Breakfast started from eight and we were keen to be off. The day was going to be the longest in terms of distance: 32km. But, as I had told Ed, downhill, so theoretically much easier.

We were the last of the pilgrims to leave and we set out from a chilly Pass. For the first time in weeks I was wearing my fleece whilst walking. The path on the Italian side was similarly covered with snow so we settled for the road for the first few kilometres.

We caught up with the pilgrims in front of us and for a few moments there were six of us walking together. The Dutch couple had a kind of carriage that they were pulling along. It struck me as a little bizarre. They said they could mount it on their backs if the road was tricky.

Soon, our paces meant we diverged. Ed & I tried to leave the road and take the footpath. We made it a few hundred metres and then came to another slide of snow. I took a few tentative steps and felt very unsteady. There was no way I wanted to do that for a couple of hours. We turned around and made our way back to the road. Soon, we were walking through a long avalanche tunnel.

The road had an almost perfect gradient but wound luxuriously. We walked down it quickly and painlessly for about two hours. It did, however, increase the distance by about five kilometres. Soon, the snow had totally vanished and seemed impossible again.

By the time we had reached the bottom of the road, at a village called Rhemy, it was a lot later than I had expected, despite our fairly rapid pace. From then on we passed through small Italian villages and towns for the rest of the day.

The sky was overcast which made for much easier walking.

We followed the valley down and at times the path was a little too steep for absolute comfort. We passed by thick wide aqueducts by the side of the footpath. They followed us for kilometres and kilometres. Sometimes they were covered by wire mesh and sometimes they ran freely, eight inches wide and eight inches deep and as clear as glass.

We passed through a village and found a bakery. We bought two slices of thick pizza. I was struck by my complete incapacity with Italian. Over the past weeks I had become passably good at French and I became a bumbling foreigner once again.

We headed on. Still a long way from Aosta, our stopping place for that evening. Another village and then another. They were like waymarkers that were being passed too slowly.

Time crept by and feet began to ache. My right big toe, which had lost a lot of sensation since my new boots in Besançon, was throbbing hard. We stopped for lunch as the rain was spitting. The pizza had gone a little soggy in our bags but it tasted good.

Ed, whose phone had been playing up, suddenly received a burst of message. Some were important. The intrusion from the U.K. distracted us for an hour or so.

We started to enter a considerably more built up area. In a biggish town this is always a tantalising stage. But it can preempt actual arrival by more than an hour. We passed a sign welcoming us to Aosta but still had forty-five minutes to go.

I had been trying to call places to stay all day but had only got through to someone who had given me three more numbers, none of which had answered. I was still getting by on French, as the Aosta area is a fairly bilingual area.

When we were passing Roman ruins we knew we were close. There was a seminary that I tried the intercom of. I read out ‘we are pilgrims’ from google translate. I managed to understand ‘no’ and then rough directions to a convent.

Another buzzer across the street and a nun appeared. Thankfully she spoke in French. She explained that they did usually have room but they were full. There was one bedroom free but only one bed. She looked a little doleful and I excused us.

Feet now thoroughly abused, we headed to the tourist office. They gave us the address of three cheap hotels and we headed to the cheapest. Two more kilometres out of town. I think we had probably brushed 36km that day.

We arrived. It was actually very nice to have clean towels, bedding, and a door with a lock. Ed was leaving tomorrow so we endeavoured for a quick turnaround to make the most of his short time in Italy.

I removed my shoes. The descent from the Alps had given me my first blister since Arras.

Sore feet clad in different shoes we returned to the centre of town. Beer, pizza, wine, cocktail, spritz, wine, bed.

The next day Ed was getting the bus back to Switzerland, through the tunnel, back to Martigny where he would take a train back to Geneva where he would fly back to the U.K. He undid the walking in an hour and a half.

The bus was late and we anxiously waited in the morning sun. When it arrived and Ed climbed on, I stood by the roadside waving at mirrored glass.

I felt the most alone I had done in a long time. A wave of sadness washed over me. Maybe everything wasn’t going as glidingly as I had thought. Maybe I actually was really missing everything and everyone I had left behind.

The thing about reaching halfway is that you’ve still got half left to do. You look back to see how far you’ve come and you realise you have to walk the same distance again.

I returned to the hotel. I collected some laundry together and went to find a laundrette. The walk would continue. Alone.