When we left Trient, it was cloudy and drizzly. The forecast for the day included rain for most of the day.
To get to the trail, we walked through town and had a chance to see some of the town's cows up close and personal.
Because we had taken this same stage 3 years ago (but going in the opposite direction) when we hiked the Walkers' Haute Route, we knew what was ahead of us. We would be climbing up about 3000 feet to reach the Col De Balme. I had remembered how steep the descent was when we did this stage previously and I wasn't looking forward to the ascent!
This gives you an idea of the trail we took up for the first 3 hours of hiking. 
At this point, it wasn't actually raining yet, but we were walking in a cloud! Unfortunately, that meant we had absolutely no view of the mountains. 
About an hour from Col De Balme, we were getting up above the tree line and it started raining hard. Fortunately, it wasn't a lightening storm, just a steady rain with wind.
At the Col De Balme, there was a small wooden shelter where you could buy hot drinks. We took off our wet jackets, got some coffee, and studied our guidebook for the trail down. There were several options, but we decided due to the rain and the clouds, not to take the high route down.
The other route down started down from the col through a ski area. The entire hike down took about 3 hours. 
After about 1.5 hours of hiking, the sky started lightening up and we could actually see some mountains! We were thrilled as this was NOT what was forecast. 
The last hour of the hike, we traveled from Le Tour to Argentière along a beautiful trail that started along a rushing mountain river and then took us through a forest with huge pine trees. We were descending to Argentière, but the descent was much less punishing as the one we did yesterday to Trient. 
We arrived at our hotel at about 4:15 pm pleasantly surprised at how the day had gone given the original forecast of rain all day. Stage 9 — 8 hours of hiking and 28,874 steps
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