Breathless on the Roof of the Alps

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12/10/05 - The drive to Chamonix (in the French Alps) from Switzerland, felt like we were driving to the roof of Europe. The road kept climbing gradually higher, it is also an amazing engineering feet, with its foundations way down in the valley and the actual road hugging the sides of the mountains. At 130kmh the valley below was rushing by and the mountains to our right were a much more secure thing to focus on.

Chamonix sits in the valley below Mont Blanc at 1036 metres, so for us Aussie mountain dwellers, it was odd that the floor of the valley is 571 metres further above sea level than our home. Driving into Chamonix produced so many “oooh’s” and “aaah’s” from us both, the town is squeezed below the Alps and is something like Thredbo (in the Aussie Alps), except on such a grander scale. Mont Blanc looms above at 4810 metres, absolutely amazing!

We arrived in the early evening and the sun was just setting, highlighting Mont Blanc way up the distance. Autumn is low season in Chamonix and a lot of the Hotels were not open, so we did a few laps of the town before we located the Hotel Relais des Gaillands. The rooms were adequate and the price reasonable. Marie the receptionist, cook, cleaner and all round nice person was very welcoming.

We decided if tomorrow was misty or cloudy there was no point sticking around too long as the Alps disappear and you waste your money looking at fog. But, if the weather was kind we would stay 2 days and take the Téléphérique cable car to the Aiguille Du Midi, which takes you up to 3842 metres and provides 360 degree views of the Mont Blanc Massif. We dined at a restaurant suggested to us by Marie and crossed our fingers for good weather the next morning.

The Aiguille Du Midi & Mont Blanc

13/10/05 - We woke early and Marie checked the weather forecast for the top of Mont Blanc for us. It said it was minus degrees, with the wind at 10kmh and mostly sunny (the forecast for the valley was 18 degrees). So, luck was with us. Marie kindly lent Lorenza her ski jacket and I purchased a cheap jacket and beanies in town to save us both from freezing. We packed a lunch and lots of jumpers and made our way to the Téléphérique station.

The Téléphérique (cable car) to the Aiguille Du Midi was built in 1950. It is an amazing piece of engineering and has only had a few accidents in the fifty years it has been operating. One was caused by a helicopter crashing into it!

The trip up to 3842 metres takes about 20 minutes. The views back to the Chamonix valley are amazing if you can manage to elbow past the Japanese tourists who like to hog the windows. The name Aigulle Du Midi roughly means “the needle in the middle”. The name refers to the fact that it is a very pointy mountain between Mont Blanc and the Aigulles De Chamonix. (Please excuse my lack of Geographic tech speak - pointy - is what it is!)

Once at the summit the cold air takes your breath away, then the view hits you and you heart starts to pound. I don’t know if it was the affects of the thinner air or the amazing panorama but breathing was definitely not as easy as in the valley and it was not hard to start puffing walking up the stairs to the various viewing platforms.

There is no way I can describe in words what it felt like to be on the roof of the Alps. I just hope that my photos can do it some justice. On the viewing platforms you can see Mont Blanc, the main Swiss and Italian summits. There were also many mountaineers and climbers already out on the snow and peaks doing their thing, while the less adventurous like us “oooh’d” and “aaah’d” from the safety of the viewing platforms.

It is hard to believe that at this altitude there is still wildlife, such as marmots, grouse and chamois. The area around us is also the largest glacier basin in the Alps and is surrounded by granite summits. We spent most of the day taking all this in. The temperature increased throughout the morning to about 6 degrees, which felt warm compared to the early morning when we arrived at the summit.

The weather was very kind to us and the views up their so clear we were very thankful. We both commented that this was one of the most amazing scenes we have seen in our lives and are glad we did not miss it due to fog or some such thing.

Book Shops & Jazz CDs

Back in the valley at Chamonix we found a bookshop which had a sole copy of an Italian to English phrase book, which we purchased on preparation for our drive to Italy. I was in charge of the French, so it will be up to Lorenza to study this book and take charge of the Italian.

In the bookshop there was a nice jazz CD playing, we asked who the artists was and the bookshop owner, Martine not only told us who it was, but also lent us the CD to listen to that night and make a copy. In our experience, the French have been nothing but friendly and welcoming to us.

CD Returned & Pollution Campaign

14/10/05 - We returned the CD as promised. Martine wished us a good journey and explained also the campaign the locals are running to try and reduce the pollution in the area caused by the thousands of trucks which traverse the Alps each day. The trucks diesel fumes are turning the glaciers black and the locals want the government to force them onto routes which do not come through the Alps.

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Photos

Mt Blanc
Lorenza pointing to Mont Blanc

Does it look cold?
Rob in his bargain discount ski jacket trying to keep his big ears from freezing off

Recovering
Rob recovers from the altitue stress with some Pastis

Where 2 in Italy?
Lorenza studies the map of Italy and asks "so, you want to go where now?"