Chamonix Scenes

So Saturday (July 2) we did our usual Saturday Chamonix thing: walk around, shop, go to the market, but a poulet roti and relevant fixins, and have a Saturday afternoon Chamonix repast/pique-nique. Alas, I had bought so much Italian wine we couldn't have the usual Beaujolais or Rhone wine. But Valpolicella is good too.

Chamonix market, not the best around, but a favorite

Nice setting too

Parasails always over-head

Speaking of which, I was up on Plan Praz the next morning, 
at the launch site

Where new landing approach instructions have been posted (they're doing 
landscaping work on the city's sports field)

What the launch site looks like on a beautiful Sunday morning in July

Here's how you do it: start running, spread your wings, and

Voila, you're in the air, hoping for a thermal to carry you higher (you're already 
3,000 feet above the valley)

Of course there are on view plenty of other summer 
sports to pursue

Ditto

In Chamonix Again

So we found our place again in the parking lot of the Aiguille du Midi Telephyrique and settled in for another brief stay in the historic capital of alpinism, a place we always find attractive and interesting, Chamonix. On Friday, July 1, I did another hike, taking the bus up to the Col du Montets and walking from the col back down to La Flegere and the telephyrique there back to the valley. Walking "the col back down" entailed first a two hour set of switchbacks rising 2000 feet! But it was another brief stretch of the Tour du Mont Blanc that weather forced us off in 2005.

Back in Chamonix, where some nice fresco

work has been going on

On all my hikes in the Alps, I have never seen an ibex, except

at great distance, fleeing

But here, above the Col du Montets, in the Parc Naturelle,

there was a whole flock, obviously unconcerned with human

presence

Including this big guy

OK, they're just mountain goats, but any sort of larger wild

mammal is unusual in Europe; you should see the sensation

among hikers caused by the sight of a marmot!

Oh yes, there was some alpine scenery around

Mt. Blanc, from near La Flegere

Chamonix Aiguilles

Aiguille du Midi, across the valley

Grandes Jorasses





Out our window Friday evening



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

Val du Ferret

On Friday (Thursday was a domestic day, another bus ride into Courmayeur), we drove up the Val du Ferret to piece together the bad-weather day we had in 2005 between Rifugio Bertone and Rifugio Bonatti. This I did on the middle corniche, so to speak, from Arvenin to Bonatti, following a 6200 foot contour mostly, and then back down to the valley. The weather was decent, though a bit hazy.

Monte Bianco and the Aiguilles Noire, from Val du Ferret

Closer up of the summit

Italian side of Grandes Jorasses

And its glaciers

Rifugio Walter Bonatti, the best of all the TMB refuges;

Bonatti was a famous Italian climber

Dining room in the Rifugio Bonatti

Table with a view

Back down in the valley, a trout pond

And, in a clear stream by the path, a fugitive trout

After resting up (Vicki hiked the valley, again favoring her knee), we Tunneled back to Chamonix and our spot at the Aire Grepon.

Val Veny

When we did the Tour du Mont Blanc in 2005, we tented near the Rifugio Elisabetta Soldini, just down from the Col du Seigne, the French/Italian border. The Elisabetta lies at the base of three glaciers, the Petit Mont Blanc, the Estellita, and the Lex Blanche, and even during a wild Alpine thunderstorm that night, we could hear the ice calving, the rocks falling. Or so we thought. Then, about midnight, we were attacked by the red fox, first a jab at the foot of the tent, then a terrible rip at the head, and our food bag being pulled away. (Hey, it's not grizzly country). I held on to the food bag, and we suffered the rest of the night with a 3 foot tear in our little tent. We resolved the next morning to head straight into Courmayeur, for repairs and relief. Ultimately, we repaired the tent with "American tape" purchased at the hardware store. But we took the low road into Courmayeur and missed some of the more spectalcular scenery of the higher "official" TMB route. Tuesday I hiked back up nearly to the Elisabetta, then climbed up to the high route, and followed it back to our campground, via the Rifugio Maison Vielle and the Rifugio Monte Bianco.

Looking up the Val Veny toward the Col de Seigne and

France; the Rifugio Elisabetta Soldini is right center

Other people have been here...

Monte Bianco from Val Veny

Looking up to the Innominata Face of Monte Bianco

Glacier Miage, I think

Blue gentians; flowers all around

Miage Glacier and its huge moraine

Monte Bianco and the Aiguille Noire

The Grandes Jorasses through the trees, and

some of the trail

Dining room of the Rifugio Monte Bianco; time for a cold

Birra Moretti