The village is at the bottom and there are mountains surrounding the village. What was even better was that we had an unbelievable view outside our porch. The glaciers were right in front of us.
We took a bus to our place. We couldn't get the keys to the place until 3:00. The place is small, but great. There is a kitchen to basically just cook in. The living and dining area is off the kitchen and is in one room. There is a room off that without walls separating the living room and bedroom. There are two bunks there. MaryAnn, Eva, Jack, and Jim have the bunks. Laurie is sleeping outside on the porch and I have the couch that folds down to make a bed. It isn't a place where we could live for a month, but we can survive a week. There isn't a place to put clothes so we just have our packs and suitcases on the floor.
A few of us walked to the store to get food and supplies and then walked back. MaryAnn prepared dinner and we enjoyed sitting down eating together.
The night started to get dark and we could see lights on the mountain. It was so neat to see. There is a gondala or chairlift that goes up to the top. There are also houses on the lower part of the mountain.
August 24, 2003
We all got up and had something to eat. We were out of the house by 8:15. The trail that we took was right across the street. Jack and Jim had checked for the trailhead last night.
We started on the trail, but soon after we got going the trail seemed to disappear. Jim and Jack searched ahead for a trail. We ended up bushwhacking up a very steep hill. Eventually we found a trail and we followed it. We did finally see signs to let us know that we were on the right path.
The path switchbacked all the way up the side of the mountain. It was very hot. It has been awhile since I have sweated that much. I was always looking for a shady spot when we stopped. There weren't many.
We had beautiful views of the mountain. The sky was dotted with all pretty colors. It was filled with paragliders. It looked so cool. I really want to be out there gliding through the air.
We got to a spot that had a restaurant and a cablecar that brought people up. We stopped at the restaurant and ate our lunch there. The name of the place was Planpraz and it was at 2000 M which is about 6,600 feet. Our starting point was about 3000 feet. Right after that was where all the paragliders took off. We watched a few of them. Some of them lifted right off the ground when the wind would pick up the sail.
There is another cablecar that leaves Planpraz and goes up to 2525 M, which is 8285 feet. It looks awful scary. Amazing that they built the cablecar to go that high.
We continued hiking but we didn't go higher. We just went along the same level and then we headed down. The trail led us right down to Chamonix. We got down about 4:00. While in town we stopped at the grocery store to pick up something for dinner.
We walked to the bus stop and waited for the bus. I was tired and I was looking forward to being back at the apartment.
We sat around on the porch eating snacks and drinking. I didn't want to get up, but I told MaryAnn that I would go for a walk around the pond near our apartment. When we went to the pond I noticed across the street a rock wall that several people were climbing. It got me thinking I would like to do more rock climbing when I get back. I have done it a few times and I will never be good. I guess I just want to do it maybe to get over my fears and maybe get stronger. MaryAnn and I walked back. We all went to bed pretty early because we had an early morning tomorrow.
August 25, 2003
My alarm went off at 6:00 and I let everyone know that it was time to get up Last night I made hard boiled eggs for everyone to have for breakfast. So we had a quick bite and walked down to the village. We were going to take the Telepherique de l'Aguille de Midi (which is the cable car) to the top of Aiguelles du Midi which is 12,600 feet. It was actually two cable cars we had to take. The first one went to Plan de l'Aiguielle at 7380 feet. We got off that car and hopped on the next one. The cable car was standing room and it holds about 70 people. It took only 30 minutes to go up 9,000 feet. It didn't seem that it took that long. It was really cool to be up so high on this cable car. The top of Aiguelle de Midi was so cool. They have a couple of observation decks. We could see Mt. Blanc and there were people that had camped below where we were standing and some looked like they were heading out to climb Mt. Blanc.
If we wanted to, we could have taken a cable car from there into Italy. That would have been fun to do, but we were there to hike.
At an observation point we could see two guys rock climb this rock pinnacle that they started at another observation deck. They were on this small rock summit.
After spending about an hour up there we took the cable car back down to Plan de 'l Aiguille. That is where our hike was to start for the day.
We were lucky that all the up hill was done by cable car. It was all downhill now, but it was a total of 6580 feet that we had to go down.
We stopped at Signal Forbed, which is at 7209 feet, pinnacle shaped mountains all around us. Below us were glaciers. The spot was filled with people, but we were able to have a spot to ourselves.
Jim and Jack talked to a woman there who had been there in 1956. She said the glacier looked quite different then. I later talked to the woman. She was 70 years old. She told me she had a cousin in Old Lyme, CT. She told me that growing up during the war the family was on opposite sides. Her cousin was in East Germany and she lived in France. It must have been very tough.
We made our way down to Mer de Glace. There was a restaurant there. It was packed, not everyone walked there. There is a gondola there, but I don't know if it takes people up to the restaurant from some place or not.
