So I'm back from the Alps. I didn't post anymore since last Wednesday because with the war going on in Israel it seemed pointless. In fact, the whole trek seemed pointless. However, I did write everything on my pocket PC. So If you're curious to read my stories, I'll post them soon, with the pictures. [View Full Entry]

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A very late note about the last day of the trip - as I uploaded the pictures ages ago and never wrote the text. We spent the last night in Geneva, and didn't do much except a nice stroll around the tip of the lake, where we enjoyed a small food festival. On Friday morning we checked in the airport just to discover that the connecting flight to Israel was postponed to the middle of the night which meant a very long day in Paris (we flew with Air France through Paris). For me personally it wasn't bad at all - [View Full Entry]

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When I went to Aiguille du Midi yesterday I bought a 2-day multi-pass for the cable cars around. So today was packed with going up & down the mountains. I decided to do a short hike that started in Plan d'Aiguille, the middle station on the way up. I arrived at 8am, and there were no queues. The sky was perfectly clear and I decided to make another short visit up there. In the morning the lights are different so it's another angle, and anyway it's all breath-taking, so why not see it again? The short hike to Lac Bleu and [View Full Entry]

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It started when I heard of the 120 missiles attack. Suddenly the mood wasn't high anymore. My state of mind changed completely. My heart was in Israel, not in the TMB anymore. When the spirit is low, everything bothers me. I felt lonely. I couldn't go on. However, I still did another one day, on Sunday. It was relatively easy. We started climbing from the refuge along a lovely valley called Vallon de la Lee Blanche, to Col de la Seigne, crossing back to France. On the way up we had magnificent views behind us and Ron was walking almost backwards, [View Full Entry]

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And the Israelis are welcome to sing it to the music of “gan sagoor” - of the “16th Sheep”... So what happened? After the hard day we had yesterday, Dana and I decided to take the cable-car up. It was anyway a rather short day, so we got up late, and by 9am Ron started to walk, while we went to the supermarket, very happy and relaxed. After filling our bags with goods for the next 2 days we continued to the cable-car station just to discover it was closed the entire summer season. Unbelievable that the girl in the info [View Full Entry]

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Wow we had one hard day... It started with an easy walk down Italian Val Ferret. At some point we saw the entire mountain side above us ruined, all the trees cut. Ron said it looked like an avalanche and then he pointed to the right and there was the avalanche - a huge pile of ice, covered with mud, scary to think what happened to everything that stood in its way! At some point we started climbing but it wasn't too hard. It’s only 800m to our first col of the day (col means a mountain pass in French). It [View Full Entry]

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I can put it in one word in Hebrew: "hitbarbarnu". The day started fine with muesli for breakfast, and we started to walk to the village of Ferret. I was expecting a nice warm-up as Ferret was only 100m up the valley. Soon, however, the path started to climb and we discovered something was very wrong only after climbing over 200m. We were looking for the way down to Ferret that we saw below us in the valley. Soon there were many people behind us. Everybody made the same mistake (maybe because the signs were bad?) We found a narrow path [View Full Entry]

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After yesterday's massive effort, we definitely needed a rest. In a trek, a rest doesn't mean lying on your back to get sun tanned; rather it means a nice and easy walk. This is exactly what we had today. We started with a short descent to the town of Champex with its fine lake. We stocked up with fresh bread and fruit, so we spent maybe half an hour feeding the ducks with yesterday' bread. In the beginning the ducks were pretty far from us, so I went to bring them, leading them with little pieces of bread. It was really [View Full Entry]

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This is supposed to be the most difficult day of the trek, and it better be. I'm sitting now at Relais L'Arpette, after this very long and tough day, and I'm sooo tired. We started before 8am with a nice path, climbing gently up the hill. When we reached Chalet du Glacier at 1583m the path took a steep turn... The higher we went, the steeper it became. No wonder in fact, as we were simply facing a wall in front of us. You look at the wall and it seems absolutely impassable. It's sooo high. The last 400m climb were [View Full Entry]

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In fact, we tricked right away... from the beginning... Dana's knees weren't doing very well and after contemplating the whole morning, she asked to take the cable-car to Col du Balme. We climbed several hundred meters in just 15 minutes. Fun... The view from the top is amazing - of course. France is on one side and Switzerland is on the other. A small stone marks the border. Crossing it I can't help thinking of World War 2. Were there any Jews climbing here trying to sneak through to Switzerland? Or maybe this point was too easy to get to and [View Full Entry]

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