Today, rested and refreshed, we began our hike by walking through the town, uphill, to Villair where the Tour du Mont Blanc path began to climb. 
We stopped to look at the map and note that our first stop was Rifugio Bertone. 
As always, we had to factor in about 1.5 the time that the sign indicated the hike would take :-).
At this point, the path began a steep uphill climb. The woman at our hotel told us we would have about a 2-hour climb up. 
This photo will give you an idea of our climb. The hotel where we started this morning is down in valley. 
This is the view of the path leading up to Rifugio Bertone. 
It is our experience that the huts are generally accessed by one final steep climb up. Once at the Rifugio Bertone, we took a brief stop to take in the view and then decided to proceed onward. 
Shortly after we ascended from the Rifugio, we turned to take a path coming from Val Ferret. This path was what we followed for the rest of the day — it is called a "balcony trail" because as you follow along it, it is like you are on a balcony overlooking a breathtaking view the whole way. It was a joyous experience — we had gorgeous weather, we were rested, and we had a smooth easy path. 
Our view for the entire time we were on this path included a succession of glaciers, snowfields, and spectacular mountains. 
We are so happy to see the glaciers as we don't know how much longer they will be here in our warming world. Already, you can see evidence of how much the glaciers have receded. 
This was the meadow we sat in (and the view) when we had our lunch.
Once again, we saw some people on the trail, but many times we felt like we were the only ones around.
Today there was definitely more evidence of the upcoming UTMB races which start on Friday. The protocol is for hikers to step aside for the runners — it is a little more challenging this time because many of the runners were coming from behind us. Most of the runners we saw today are here training and acclimating before the event.
We met a delightful couple (probably about our age) from Hong Kong. They snapped this photo of us during the day.
Finally, about 3 pm, we saw the Rifugio Bonatti ahead. Once again, gettting there required a final climb, but today we still had some energy left for the final push.
Once there, we took off our boots and had a beer. Tasted really good!
There is a big deck out front where people from all over the world are gathered to relax after a day of hiking. 
This is the front of the Rifugio and the photo below is one of the views from the front deck. 
We had a wonderful multi-course Italian dinner and then settled in for a good night sleep in our dorm room with 5 other people. Stage 5 - 7.5 hours of hiking and 26,780 steps
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