TMB 7: Forests, Gnomes, Chalets, Mushrooms, and Real Swiss Villages

This was a "through the forest and town" kind of day with some exciting cliff trail chains on the rock side to hold on to tossed in (thanks to the walking4fun.com photo!) Lovely fairly easy traveling through a few real Swiss villages with gardens of gnomes and miniature stone buildings up for display to the hikers. On the last climb, there were several large carved critters on logs encouraging us up the hills. We also passed some huge ladders and caves where mining was a big deal for decades.  First time I have ever seen so many mushroom informational signs. We in the US are so frightened to eat many of them for fear of getting the poisonous one. In grocery stores here, there are many varieties packed together. We get to Champex Lac and find a sweet little hotel with good hot showers and a view of the beautiful lake and northern range. WiFi here so I catch up with the kids on Whatsapp and Vern watches French TV (our first TV since we've been here!)  Pretty funny to see mostly American shows with French dubbed onto their lips. Run into several familiar faces over dinner - main conversation, once again, is tomorrow's weather. Shaping up to be a rainy one. Today's elevation, 2,100 up and 2,000 down.