The French Alps

Last night after Mum cut our hair, we were visited by a couple of Jehovannah’s Witnesses. She told us the world was going to end soon and that we needed to be prepared. She had a discussion for a while and she left us with a magazine in French. We were parked right next to the train tracks so we got out and waved to all the trains passing by.


We spent the next morning hooked into some free McDonald’s ‘Wifi’ down the road and had pancakes.

Mum almost booked some tickets home. We drove towards Chamonix with an awesome view of Mount Blanc and all the mountains surrounding it. We drove out of the valley where we went shopping in Le Fayet and up some switchbacks to St. Gervais. We parked between a large indoor ice-hockey arena and a steep little gorge. All the houses and cabins had little barriers on the roofs to hold on the snow so it didn’t pile ground and block the doorways. We walked through town, past the tempting treats in the Patisserie and the Chocolatier. We looked in the town church and had chips in the gardens. All the trees were Autumn red and we could see the mountains. We went looking for the tourist office but found a lit up map and touch screen information point instead. We worked out where we wanted to hike tomorrow and walking back to the camper we pasted the tourist office which closed while we were at the map.

We were going to climb up the mountain railway track to a glacier about halfway up the mountain but instead we drove 12km up to les Contamines to a parking lot surrounding by little log cabins. We set off on a very steep gravel 4x4 track in the shade of the mountain so it was freezing. After two hours we reached a cluster of cabins with slate roofs and a pond called Le Truc. We could walk up to the almost retreated glacier but instead walked down to Miage, another little settlement. We pumped some glacial water with our filter and had lunch on the grass. After some more lollies we walked up the last part of the hike. It took two hours up steep switchbacks and a rocky track. We were out of the shade and in the hot sun. It was hard to breathe because the air is thinner at a higher altitude. We reached the summit of Col de Tricot (alt. 2120m). We were only in the saddle of a huge hill and Mount Tricot but we had a great view of the railway cut through the mountain and the same glacier we were going to walk to but from the other side. Mount Blanc was hidden behind other peaks. There were lot’s of Paragliders on the hill next to us. We were out of water so we had lollies and a rest. We walked back down but lost Mum and Dad still halfway up. Back at the stream in Miage we filled our water bottles and numbed our sore feet in the cold water. Some horses came and said hello to us and the sun had moved behind us so we could see the snow capped peaks better than before. Mum and Dad’s knees were starting to hurt and we continued up then down to our camper before dark. We drove back to our spot in St.Gervais for the night.

Mum and the girls walked to the library to try and play a board game because all the books were French But it was closed. We drove back down to Le Fayet and did some shopping. We drove on a 2km long viaduct that shot straight up the valley to Chamonix. We went through some short tunnels and under an avalanche chute. Chamonix was like a ghost town and everyone was building in the off season. We couldn’t get the camper in the town centre and it was only full on ski apartments and rental places.

We drove up the Chamonix valley with Mont Blanc on the right. We saw lot’s of cable cars, gondolas and chair lifts hanging to the slopes and some of the gondolas went from peak to peak. We drove up to the end of the valley to a little village called Le Tour. We parked in a gondola car park on a big lean. We had lunch and walked towards Mont Blanc until we had a view of the Chamonix valley. We thought it was just around the corner so we kept walking. We turned around after half an hour and moved our camper to the parking lot of that trail. We were below another glacier that had almost retreated and we couldn’t play in the creek because of a risk of flooding. The girls made a stick hut and the boys went running up the track we walked before. Mum cooked us roast pork for tea. We were also parked below a grassy ski slope so we did a ‘snow dance’ before we went to bed.

We decided to walk up the small mountain behind the camper and next to the Glacier. We headed off towards Mount Blanc for the second time but cut back up a steep track towards the Glacier. After two hours we reached a cairn, rock shelter and a tent surrounded by alpine blueberries. There were steep bluffs above us the blocked out the view of the glacier and the camper was smaller than an ant. We were above the end of the Le Tour Gondola and behind that was Switzerland and Mum was trying to tell us one on the mountains was the Matterhorn. We caught a glimpse of Mount Blanc before it was covered in clouds but next to it was one of the hardest mountains to climb in the Alps. We were looking directly into the sun so it was hard to see the Chamonix valley and the mountains. Instead of going back the way we came we did a round trip down thirty switchbacks. We stayed another night in the park at the start of the trail and the girls rebuilt their hut.

Today Mum and Dad watched people climbing on the other side of the valley that we walked up. We were going to walk up there today but the weather wasn’t good and we were too late to start. Mum made garlic bread and pizza out of pre-made pastry. We drove back down to Chamonix and watched Paragliders land next to golf course. We talked to a guy and we want to go paragliding now. We drove down the big viaduct and back up to St. Gervais to dump.  We watched Man on a Horse and Cart lead a heard of goats down the main road. We left the Chamonix area and drove towards Italy.We‘ve decided to not take the Mount Blanc tunnel to Italy but go around in the mountains instead.