Solalex is the name of a ‘Refuge’, restaurant and hotel, in a charming valley of the Alps Vaudaise, above Gryon. The mountain chain called Les Diableretes, a spectacular sequence of rock faces, makes the north side of the valley. To the south you have the Arête (ridge) de l’Argentine. My first attempt was to start from Solalex to go up to the Col de la Poreyrette, the tail end of the Arête de l’Argentine. It proved to be a mistake. The steep path through a bolder field became increasingly slippery and my foothold unstable. My return sliding down a bolder field earned me a nice butt massage with a happy ending (not in the Thai massage sense), pants and bones remained intact.
Upon my return to Solalex there was enough time left to take the much more comfortable trail up to Refuge Giacomini.
As you make your way up to the refuge the look back over the valley becomes increasingly impressive
Maintaining this road is a costly and labor intensive proposition, snow melt cause rock slides moving sizable boulders that threaten to destroy the road every season. The solution is to maintain a big hole on the side of the road, which absorbs the rocks before they hit the road.
All these rocks with the mountain in the back remind me of Ansel Adams image of Mount Williamson in the Sierra Nevada an image that inspired many, me included, but not today, the light was just not right and the location not familiar enough.
The Refuge de Giacomini is on a higher plateau and will be a good starting point for future excursions.
So this was my first exploratory excursion. When the weather is more promising for photography I shall return, not to hike, but to focus on capturing the landscape.