This stage of the GR5 mainly descends from Col de la Golese to Samoëns. Only the first part rises to the col. The trail passes through beautiful meadows with cows and sheep. Lower down, it leads through forests and the nice little village of Les Allamands where there is also a drinking water point. The paths in the descent are easy to walk. From Samoëns, the trail runs about 4 km off the GR5 to Camping Municipal Verchaix.
Last night we were in bed nice and early, as expected. As we stood outside in the dark brushing our teeth, we saw that near the barbed wire, a few meters behind our little tent, a cow was curiously watching what we were doing. How big those animals look, standing in a dark forest with a flashlight. We decided to ignore it as much as possible and crawled into our tent.
As we fell asleep we heard the creaking of poles and the sound of moving barbed wire. The cow had clearly set its sights on taking a look at our spot. Lying on our air mattress, we hoped the barbed wire would hold... Normally you don't have to be afraid of cows, but a curious cow can damage our tent with its horns. Fortunately, the barbed wire held, but a few times it sounded like the cow was standing next to the tent.
In the morning, after a somewhat broken night, we did get back on the road early. Today we have a rather short stage, there is about 12 kilometers left to get to the campsite in Samoëns. We start with a small climb, just over 100 meters, the only meters uphill today. We cross the wildlife grid and walk past the cows that kept us awake last night. At the top, a herd walks with us over the hill to a pasture on the other side. What huge tracts of land the cows have here in the mountains. They can go wherever they want, and these fortunately walk without cow bells. Those sound so loud with every step that it's torture for the animals. The farmers like it for the tourists and it's easy to find them quickly in the big meadows, but the animals themselves are deafened by it. Very characteristic, but not so cow-friendly...
At the top of the hill is a refuge with horses standing by and some people waking up next to their tents. We walk further down and more and more we head into civilization. Here and there beautiful chalets are hidden in the forest and we pass some hikers who are taking an early day hike in the other direction. Near the picturesque village of Les Allemands, with 5 houses and a church, is a lavoir where a resident is filling his watering cans. We ask him if it's "eau potable" and he replies "Biensur, n'est pas de problème! We fill our bottles and drink lovely cool water. What faith in people we have...
About 4.5 kilometers further on, we are already entering the village of Samoëns. At the edge of the village we rinse our shoes and hiking poles in the small river. After the rain and the days in the mountains they have become quite muddy and we want to walk into the village looking a bit presentable. We walk into the crowd, through to the campground and hope to get a spot there. But when we arrive we see a sign 'Complet' and it turns out the reception is closed for lunch break. After a few minutes a man comes up to us and tells us that they always have space for GR5 hikers and we can pitch our tent on a small spot next to a building in the shade. We ask him if it would possible to stay for 3 days, because we want to spend a few days over here to recover from the climbing and descending, especially the knees have had a hard time. Unfortunately he doesn't know if that's possible and he advises us to wait until the reception opens again in 2 hours. Just to be sure, we contact a municipal campground 4 kilometers away. At least there is room there. So: backpacks back on and hike a little further!
We walk via a park with swimming lakes to a large supermarket on the outskirts of Samoëns. After the past few days in the mountains, we have run out of food completely and we can stock up again in the gigantic French supermarket. And while enjoying an ice cream, we walk the last kilometers to the campsite in Verchaix.
The many ascents and descents with a heavy backpack have taken their toll on Malou's knees. We figure it's better to recover for a few days now, than to keep running into it during the next stages. Those will undoubtedly be beautiful again, but tough.
