Day 5 - Gasternal Valley

Today was always designed to be an easy one to give everyone a bit of a break. We were up at 8.30am and had breakfast then left here about 10.15am. We walked south down the valley a little way then east up the Gasternal Valley. This involved climbing from around 1,200m here up to around 1,400m, following the path of the Kander river. The views on the way up are pretty spectacular and the Kander flows down over the waterfalls all the way down. We had a gentle mooch in the morning and foraged for wild strawberries (very small, but very sweet) and blueberries, which were really popular. The Scouts had a paddle in the river and built some dams. We met Roger, Roger and Hugh for lunch then they headed up to Selden while we walked over to a waterfall for a (very cold) shower. It then got colder and looked like rain, so we headed back down, arriving back at 5pm. We got an ice cream, which was welcome. Back to the chalet for dinner and games were played - football and table tennis are very popular, as are cards. Tomorrow is going to be different to what we had planned, as heavy thunderstorms are forecast and that means the glacier day has been postponed until Wednesday.