Well... We Came Here For The Views!

So far, aside from the wicked storm we hit on the way up to Chamonix, the weather has been exceptional.  I am going to be rocking a pretty sweet tan when I get home.  Nights have been a little warm to sleep, but the hikes are kicking our butts and so fatigue seems to win out.  We have been having a bit of a lack of warm water situation, but with a little planning, seems like we've got it figured out.  Only one showerer at a time seems to do it.

Every morning I open the blind up in our room to the most spectacular view.  Morning and night, it's always different and always jaw dropping.  You feel like you can just reach out and touch the mountain.  And well, we did come here for the views afterall, but never expected to be this lucky.  The food is simply outstanding.  If we were paying for these meals in a restaurant, I can only imagine how much our dinners would be.  And even the lunches are terrific.  Zoey has a spread of different salads to pick from and between left over cake, baguettes to make sandwiches, boiled eggs if you're into that and all kinds of other stuff, you can make yourself a pretty darn good spread to enjoy up on the mountain.

Day 2 takes us to the other side of the Chamonix Valley, trekking towards Switzerland.  We didn't actually cross over into Switzerland, but you could see it from the peak of Aiguillette des Posettes.  This was a big climb, up to 2200m/7220 ft pretty steady 820m ascent.  It was quite the accomplishment though and the panoramic view was unbelievable.  There was even a group doing yoga up there when we summitted.  One of those hikes when you think you're almost there, but you go over a crest or around a corner and it now looks even further than it did 10 minutes ago.  HOT HOT SUN!  Not a cloud in the sky and the UV was through the roof so I had to wear my long sleeve shirt for most of it even if I was melting because the sunscreen wasn't cutting it.  Last thing I need to get is sun stroke.  The descents are hard and so most of the group was looking forward to taking the cable car down (instead of walking), but just like day 1, the cable car was conveniently out of service when we got there, forcing everyone to walk back down.  This week is rated "Moderate" and a difficulty of 3/10. I really don't want to know how hard an 8 or 9 is... YIKES!  My hips and shins are screaming!  It is so worth it though... Not just for the mountains, but also for the very fit shirtless men that we seem to come across on the mountain.  Two out of two days now we run into handsome shirtless men... Egle (trip leader) and I are trying to go for a full week! HAHAHA - again - we came here for the views afterall.

Day 3 is the voyage into Italia!  Our hosts drive us through an 11km tunnel through the mountain to the other side which is Italy.  This is apparently going to be a little more of a moderate day.  Something we are all looking forward to after 2 really big hikes.  We still ascend about 450 m/1500 ft and descend 550 m/1804 ft but we start higher and hit about 2000 m/ 6560 ft.  This path is much "softer" on the legs and feet and is mostly a balcony walk which brings us up to a refuge called the Bonati Refuge where we stopped for a coffee/tea of Italian hot chocolate.  And if you've never had Italian hot chocolate, put it on your bucket list. It is exactly that - HOT CHOCOLATE... It's like drinking melted chocolate.  Most of us had to cut it with coffee or milk, but it is insanely delicious all the same.  

Although this path wasn't as strenuous, it definitely had it's challenges.  It was muddier, had a lot of stream crossings, one if particular with fast strong current and no way to get across but to walk through it with a narrow rock ridge to climb down on the other side and it had cows.  LOTS OF COWS.  Moo was happy to reunite with his brethren.  We did get turned around a bit and following the cows, Egle thought we might not be going in the right direction, but after looking at alternative options we decided to actually follow our initial route after back tracking a bit.  The weather again was exceptional and the views on this side of the Alps was so dramatic and very different from what we had seen to date.  They were equally impressive and the more laid back walk let us enjoy ourselves a little more and laugh at all the silly things that happened.  We're all getting along really well and given that the opportunities to use a toilet are few and far between (if not non existant), a group that pees together, stays together.  And with only 3 men in the group, the pee breaks are always an interesting challenge HAHA.  We finished the day with a gelato before driving back to Chamonix.  And of course there were brownies sitting there for us too.  I thought we got the ice cream instead of the cake (because Zoey and Ben stay in Italy while we hike and would have no time to prep)...but sure enough - brownies waiting for us too.  A hike in Italy of course would not be complete without a 3 course meal of Italian cuisine.  Bruschetta, Gnocci and Panna Cotta.  We came for the views, but maybe we'll stay for the food!  

Tomorrow is our day off to do what we want and I'm going paragliding.  Yep.  Jumping off a mountain once again... This time with a parachute.  OH LORD WHY!  Thankfully the American couple are coming too and none of us have done this before - so we're all in it together!  Sue will watch over Moo.  May the weather be ever in our favour.