Steps in the Right Direction: Arriving in Chamonix and Our first day Hiking

Wow today we get to sleep in. We have to met our tour group at the Geneva airport at eleven. The shuttle is suppose to be leaving the hotel at 10:40. Sort of makes us wonder if that is the Swiss 10:40 or the guy from yesterday who needs a new watch. We plan for the Swiss 10:40. The airport is really only two miles away. The driver we have today must be Mario Andretti's grandson, because we took every corner on two wheels, beeped at a few people who were driving in his way, and then screeched to a halt in no time flat. Delivered right to the door we need to be at for our tour group. Speedy delivery!

We thank Mario for the lift and go to our meeting space. REI adventure sent us all team shirts that arrived in the mail a few weeks prior to our trip and we are all suppose to wear them today. Either we are for sure sticking out like tourist or looking like a team, I'm not sure which one. It does make it easier to identify the group and therefore not spend as much time standing in the airport.

Slowly our team starts to grow in numbers. Introductions of names and places we are all from. We meet Danelle our Chamonix hiking guide for the next eleven days. Grab your bags, let's get moving.

The twelve of us board a huge tour bus. Kathi and I have all of this chocolate we bought up at the Jungfrau and want to tke it one the bus. Our bus driver insists we put our backpack under the bus... To me it seems like there will be about 20 extra seats on the bus, so I'm wondering why we can't have the backpack on the bus. He does not speak English, or if he does, he does not care. All bags under the bus. Melted chocolate tastes the same as not melted chocolate, right?

It is a one hour bus ride to Chamonix. The mountain suddenly appearing out of the rolling land and as you drive the last tiny bit into Chamonex all you see is the big massiveness of Mont Blanc dominating,the whole backdrop. Mont Blanc massif is,the largest mountain in the alps standing 15,780 feet tall. We are going to walk all the way around it passing through three countries, over nine mountain passes, gaining and losing over 32,000 feet and traveling over 106 miles! I can't wait!

We arrive at our hotel and have the afternoon to get to know Chamonix. Shore, eat, walk, investigate the town. It is bigger than Murren, but pretty tiny. Everything is small scale and easy to walk too. We gather for dinner at 7 pm.

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This morning we were up early as it was stifling hot in our room. At one point during the night I was up standing I front of an open door to the outside back grass area. We have a first floor room and either you sleep with the door wide open or you sleep with the room shut up and locked... No air, no fan, but we do have some sort of shutter on the door so I closed the shutter and left the door open. I was dripping wet, the room was one long hot flash.

We got up, took showers, and headed down to a continental breakfast at 6:35. This was a tad early, We will go tomorrow at 6:45 to let the first rush of people go through and allow the staff to reload the continental breakfast. Breakfast starts serving at 6:30 and by 6:35 the food is all on people's plates. I'll just say this has to do with tourism. Saying anything more would not be nice. Feel free to ask me in person on this.

After breakfast our REI GROUP reconvened in a common area to pack our lunches for the day. Caroline, our driver, has purchased and laid out a feast for us. She has several local meats, several local cheeses, bread, greens, tomatoes, and fruit that is fresh and dried... Wow, all local items, some of which we have to ask what it is. Packing a lunch should be this wonderful at home! Caroline spent the last 18 months in the US working at Aspen. She then did some traveling around the U.S., so she has some pretty fair English skills. "Ya, you like?" Being her favorite saying

Today we began our spectacular tour du Mont Blanc by taking a journey on a trail beneath the Aiguilles Rouges (Red Peaks), a crystalline mountain massif opposite the Mont Blanc range. In two groups we are shuttled over to the golf course for a flat start to our hike. The flat lasts for about 200 yards, after that 200 yards it was up and up until we gained about 2/3's of our elevation for the day. Here we find nestled against the mountain a little tea house called La Flora. The front step of this tea house is really the trail as it heades past the tea house. We walk just past the tea house and stop on the trial for a water break. If you want to stop on their flower filled doorstep and use the bathroom the price is buying something they sell. Or just walk up the trail a ways and use the great outdoors. We stop long enough for people to pull their water bottles out of their bags and take a drink before we continue up the elevation up to La Flégère (6150').

At LaFlègrè, we stopped for a cookie snack and real bathroom break at the cable car terminal. The cable car serves tourists in the summer and skiers in the winter. In Chamonix all of the skiing is done from the top of the mountain to the midpoint, as the valley is too warm and the snow melts.

At the La Flègère we began our balcony walk across the upper shoulder of the Aiguilles Rouges. We are on the amazing high path balcony known as the Grand Balcon. Along this trail we enjoy magnificent views of the rocky spires and glaciers draping the Mont Blanc massif across the valley before descending back to Chamonix. Lucky for us our guide Danielle grew up in Chamonix and knows the names of all of the surrounding mountains and says them with such a deep French Brogue that you have no idea what she said but it just sounds delious!

The Grand balcony is above tree line and we are in the hot sun during the hottest part of the day. Lots of sun screen for our group. Looks like there are some pretty fair skinned people in our group. (I'm not sure why they are even bothering with the sun screen as it is blazing hot, and they sweat it off in about three minutes.) I think they will all be shopping for long sleeve light weight shirts tonight!

Kathi and I are the not the youngest, but the second and third youngest. Cole is the youngest, he just graduated from college and is hiking with his father, Chip.
Otherwise our group has the good handle on the 50's and 60's. I think today's hike is for the guides to get a good feel for the abilities of the group members. Sort of weed out anyone who might not be up to the task of hiking around Mount Blanc. In teacher language, the guides are doing some simple formative testing, take the hikers up a steep uphill, across some exposed areas and then steep down hill. If they can handle this then we can leave home base. If you can't handle it, you get to ride shotgun in the van with Caroline.

We have a few other people as our support team. Eve (pronounced Ave) as our second guide and for a few days a student teacher sort of guide, Pascal. Pascal is trying to complete his certification to become a professional Chamonix mountain guide. He is a tall drink of water and leads the group several times today. Every time Pascal is in the lead the group would break apart. I'm sure he thinks he is hiking slow, but with is long walking gate it is too fast and the group begins to splinter. Danielle would stop him and wait until everyone was all back together before she would take the lead again. She also looks back frequently to check on the progress of the group and knows how to tell interesting facts or stories while we wait for our group to reassemble.

The start of the 20th century saw tourism flourish in the Chamonix valley and hoteliers overtook mountain guides and farmers as the predominant economic power. Amid strong protestations from local guides and sherpas who felt a threat to their livelihood, a decision was made to construct the Montenvers rack railway to the Mer de Glace which still runs today. When it opened in 1908, it took 55 minutes at a speed of 7km/h to complete the climb. (Electrification of the line in 1954 more than doubled the speed of the train and reduced the duration of the journey to 20 mins). Tourist would take the train up and then carefully cross the Mer de Glacé Glacier and then hike down. Hmm just a little history lesson from Danelle.

There followed a period of frenzied construction and the development of winter sports, culminating in the hosting of the first ever Winter Olympics in Chamonix in 1924. From this point forward Chamonix became more of a tourist town. The town is a very good place to drop a boat load of money to get fitted for some spectacular outdoor sporting activity. Salomon, North Face, Rosiginal, Patagonia, Millet, Mamoth, Helly Hansen, all have a special store here.

Today's hike took about 7 hours and we hiked 8 miles.

Hiking: 8 miles; Elevation gain: 2,770 ft. Elevation loss: 2,770 ft.