Chamonix, France

We spent a couple of days here, getting acclimated to the (slight) altitude and doing some hiking, before we embarked on our big trek of the Tour du Mont Blanc {much more on that later!}

That’s Mont Blanc towering over us.

It was a neat town filled with both tourists and hikers -

On our first full day, we took two gondolas up to a trail heading to Lac Blanc. This was actually a side trail off the TMB, but it would have been on our 11th day of hiking, and added 2-3 hrs to an already full day.

The picture above is looking down on the first gondola station (near the pond), as we started our ~4 mile hike.

Luckily, there weren’t too many areas of the trail like this -

Lac Blanc was really sparkly in the afternoon sun…

… and luckily not too crowded -

The upper lake…

… was a gorgeous aqua -

I just couldn’t stop taking pictures of the stupendous views…

… but this was the best reflection shot I was able to get -

On our way back down, I took this video to share with you what it’s like to approach a rise in the trail and see the view ahead of you unfold -

(as usual, open this post in a browser by clicking the link at the end of the email)

We were treated with views of both female ibex…

… and young male ibex -

Ibex are wild mountain goats, with the females having thinner and shorter horns, while the males have thicker, transverse-ridged horns that are longer and can curve quite a ways over their back. {again, more on this later}

That’s Chamonix below the Mont Blanc massif -

The next morning we took an early gondola…

… up to Aiguille du Midi, which is a 12,605 ft mountain next to Mont Blanc.

The contrast of the sharp dark rock with the smooth white snow was mesmerizing to me…

… and I took tons of pictures -

As much of a fan of mountains and flying as I am, I was not about to sign up for climbing up there! I was actually surprised by the number of people hiking and climbing -

I also got a shot of someone just about to summit Mont Blanc -

you definitely need to enlarge this!

No matter how I took pictures of the highest point, it always looked canted (when in reality, it is most decidedly not) -

In case you were wondering, this is what people were doing in that glass box off the side of the building above -

So beautiful!

When I could finally tear myself away from all the stark beauty, we descended to the halfway point of the gondolas, to hike down and over a few miles to another glacier valley.

The wildflowers were out in full force…

… and Chamonix stretched out below us -

We approached our end point…

… and found a glacier valley ringed by sharp ridges…

… and with several waterfalls draining the opposite side -

We reached the refugio where we planned to catch a train back to Chamonix…

… only to be told there was a strike, and the train was not running. Our only option was to hike an additional 3 miles down the mountain, after we had already hiked 4! So… we carried on, grumbling every time we saw the empty train tracks…

… but luckily, most of the trail was shaded (although not nearly this smooth for most of it) -

To end this very long day, Mother Nature gave us a nice parting shot -