Le Toûno

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There is no parking immediately by the funicular station, which unfortunately means that I just miss the first train of the morning. I have to wait half an hour for the next train at 8.30. The delay is not too frustrating, because I get to shelter while a rain shower passes through. There is no sign yet of the promised 'fairly sunny' weather. I'm the only passenger going up, not counting the crates with fresh lettuce and mushrooms for the Tignousa restaurant.

 

There is a flat couple of kilometres on a gravel road from Tignousa to Le Chiesso. After that, the path goes gradually upwards circling around Le Toûno to the expanse of Tsa de Touno on the south side of the mountain. By the Lac du Toûno, the path gets steeper as the actual ascent of Le Toûno begins. Having been exposed to the sun during previous days, there is very little snow left on the path. Only along the ridge, on the final push to the summit, there is some deeper wind slab to wade through. Luckily, there is already a trail, presumably from the day before.

 

It's cold and snowing lightly on the summit of Le Toûno, so I don't hang around for long. On descent, I can just run down the snow fields which is quick and easy.

I ended up taking my ice axe in hand on the final push to the summit, and I put on my microspikes on for the descent, but both more out of comfort than out of necessity. All in all the conditions are a lot easier than expected and the hike would also have been feasible without special gear.

After having been by myself all morning, I'm surprised to run into the other hikers headed for Le Toûno near Vijivi. I give then some information about the conditions, and then continue on towards the Weisshorn hotel. Though the hotel is closed during the off-season, about a dozen of people have still walked here. I walk a little further and find a quieter bench for a quick siesta.

Just lying there soon gets cold, so I continue my descent to Saint-Luc. The path from Le Chiesso to Saint-Luc follows a stream with some nice waterfalls (Cascades du Prilet). The path is adventurous, steep, slippery and not to be underestimated (up to T3). White-red-white markings would certainly have been more appropriate here than yellow diamonds. Coming from below, there is a "difficult path" sign in three languages, but coming from above there is no such warning.

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Le Toûno turned out to be a nice day out in the tradition of Scottish winter hiking on a 3000'er summit, though not in feet, but in metres! Beautiful, desolate landscapes more than compensated for the lack of views from the summit.

(Normally the difficulty of the marked path on Le Toûno would just be T2-T3. The current conditions were definitely more demanding than that, but since I can't really figure out an appropriate grade in any scale, I'll publish this tour without grade.)