View of the Vallee Blanche from the Cog Rail Trip to Montenvers 1813m
View from Chamonix village centre to the Aiguille du Midi
We got there early and there was no sun in the valley. -8C Brrrrrr!! Chamonix is Mt Cook on steroids, the views are incredible. Chamonix is at 1035 m and Mont Blanc towers above the valley to 4810m!! Strangely enough Mont Blanc is the least spectacular of all the peaks you can see. Les Drus 3754m and Grandes Jorasses 4208m are more dramatic with their granite spires piercing the sky. We can't wait to the ride the Aiguille du Midi Cable Car and see the view from the top.
Our first mission was to find skis for Graeme and to pick up our season pass for Chamonix. Following the tip off from our local ski hire shop in Araches, we found a store that specialises in telemark skis. And...the good news was that they had the skis that Graeme wanted..but the bad news was that the shipment was running late. I managed to convince Graeme to try another outdoor shop called Snell Sports to see whether they had anything suitable. Snell Sports was unbelievable. Every possible piece of gear for climbing, skiing, hiking...anything outdoors. While they didn't have anything suitable for Graeme, they had the lot for me. In under an hour I had new skis, bindings, boots, skins and poles. Now considerably poorer...I was ready to go. While we were in the shop, the telemark specialist shop rang and told Graeme the good news...they had just unpacked their latest shipment and his skis had arrived!! They just had to wait to get the correct bindings!! They would be in by Friday at the latest! More handwringing from Graeme ensued. There is so much snow here at the moment, we are just itching to get out amongst it.
While we waited for my bindings and skins to be fitted to my skis, we picked up our Chamonix season pass, booked a trip on the Cog Railway to Montenvers 1913m. How on earth this little train winds its way up the impossibly steep mountainside, I will never know. And how on earth they built this engineering feat back in 1908 is even more mind blowing. Unfortunately the seriously cold temperatures kept our vist to the area too short. But since our Chamonix Pass allows us unlimited rides on this train, we will come back in spring when the weather is warmer.
We also did a recognisance drive further up the Chamonix Valley to the villages and ski areas Les Praz, Argentiere and Le Tour. If we continued on up the valley we would have crossed a high mountain pass into Switzerland! With so much snow, Les Grande Montets at Argentiere will open this weekend. So of course, the plan is to don the new skis and have our first day there. After sussing out the lay of the land, we continued right up the head of the valley to Les Tours. With the sun beating down, this was obviously the place for locals to go for a ski tour. The car park was full and all around us, the locals were putting skins on their touring skis and heading up the hill. We were much inspired!
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