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Published: July 24th 2015
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Day 11 - July 24, 2015 - Argentiere, France to Chamonix, France
The final day of the Mont Blanc hike is completed and I am so sad to see it end. I definitely am going to miss the great time I have spent on the mountains here along with my amazing guide Joy and the great people I have met on the trail.
Today started with Sara, the owner of Mont Blanc Treks (the company I booked my trip through) giving Joy and myself a ride to the beginning of the trail which was about 10 minutes from the hotel I stayed at last night in Argentiere. As we started the hike we immediately were greeted by some unforgivable switchbacks that at times were very steep and other times a tid bit more gradual. After reaching what is called the "shelf" we continued on the trail that soon became very rocky. There were times the trail reminded me of hiking in Red Rock with the boulders and rocks we had to navigate over and around. As I was about to make a turn on one of the switchbacks I caught something out of the corner
of my eye jump in front of me on the trail - no not mouse but what they call a grass frog. Have to admit it did startle me. Before long we came to our final ladder of the hike which was a lot of fun climbing up and then it was followed by steps made from what I call railroad ties that were a little bit tricky navigating. After almost 4 hours of hiking we finally reached Refuge Lac Blanc and the Cheserys lakes. We stopped at the Refuge Lac Blanc and found a great spot alongside the lake to eat our sack lunch that we had brought with us which consisted of hardboiled eggs, bread and cheese. After finishing our lunch we then ventured over to the refuge and had their famous blueberry tart. OMG was it good. Having gotten our bodies re-energized we started the very steep climb down the mountain on an extremely rocky path which was slow going. After about 1 hour 10 minutes we reached Refuge La Flegere where due to the weather conditions we had to make a decision as to whether to take the ski lift down to La Flegere and either
walk or take a bus into Chamonix or to continue on the trail to Plan Praz which would take another 2 1/2 hours of hiking on a very rocky trail. As we were trying to decide what the best option was we heard a loud clap of thunder and our decision was made for us - take the ski lift to La Flegere and once there then we would decide on whether to walk to Chamonix or take the bus. On way down the ski lift it started to rain and thunder so when we got to the bottom we made the decision to take the bus to Chamonix which was a very good decision as it decided to cut loose and rain cats and dogs. Arrived at my hotel around 3 pm and it has been raining hard every since.
I feel so blessed and thankful to have been able to complete the well known Mont Blanc trail which has been an amazing experience hiking up and down the mountains in France, Italy, Switzerland. I have to say it was totally different than what I had expected as the accents are considerably steeper than what we
have in Nevada - straight up and it was a lot rockier than I had thought it would be. Again a big "Thank You" to my husband for supporting and letting me experience this amazing trail!!!! Another item checked off my bucket list (actually two items marked off - Mont Blanc trail and paragliding).
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