Wednesday, June 29, 2011

And On To Courmayeur

We finished Milan and drove on late in the afternoon, stopping at a little town called Cavaglia, over-nighting in its large mercato parking lot. Alas, we noted upon leaving there was a sign on the outskirts of town that said no camping. Oh well.
Cavaglia is remarkable, totally remarkable, for having a
stone circle next to its civic center; this has got to be recent
and artificial; but no less impressive
















Up the road a bit, at Pont St. Martin perhaps, a beautiful old
Roman bridge















And thus we are back at Courmayeur, a favorite Italian town,
at the very foot of Monte Bianco, at our favorite restaurant
there, Le Vieux Pommier, enjoying our favorite totally
decadent Alpine meal, the crepes Mt. Blanc (prosciutto
rolled into crepes, drowning in a soup/sauce of fontina cheese)


















Followed by veal topped by prosciutto topped by melted
fontina (frites for Vicki, cheesy polenta for me); the vino
rosso really helps to cut through though all the white stuff;
all followed by a  sort of berry-ish creme brulee thing that I
always forget to shoot


















So, this time in Courmayeur, we found the mercato parking
lot, a few hundred meters from the centro, and stayed there
four nights, reading, planning, researching, lazing; I did a
couple of hikes, more or less repeating hikes I have done
before in this area; first, up the Val Veny, toward France,
stopping at the Lac du Miage and its 10k moraine; above,
one of the remnants of the lake, a pot-hole at the lateral of
the giant moraine; I sat there for a while, watching the
continuing trickle of scree into the bottomless pot-hole: a
reminder that this giant thing is alive and moving; I didn't
venture further 























Above now, on the balcony overlooking, some of the Miage
Glacier moraine, Mt. Blanc proper on the right















And, a bit higher on the balcony, working my way back
toward Courmayeur, more of the moraine and the Innominata
Face of Mt. Blanc; don't be deceived: it looks like rock, but
it's all ice underneath, digging out a huge canyon of the future

















The Grandes Jorasses, further on the massif; Le Geant on the
left-most















In the distance, from a refuge on the hike, one of Italy's many
great mountains, Gran Paradiso















Another day, another hike, another balcony, up the Val Ferret,
toward Switzerland: looking across at the Grandes Jorasses
glaciers
















And, from my favorite Refugio Walter Bonatti,
another look at Monte Bianco

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