After two days of travelling together with my hb, next day he had to get to work (it was his business trip I shared after all). I had nothing better to do then to go “where my eyes were set to”. My eyes were set to the mountains. And speaking of the mountains, I mean – the Alps. And speaking of the Alps I mean the largest mountain in Europe – the Mont Blanc.
Mont Blanc is easy reachable from Geneva. Only about 1.5 hour by bus. Though you have to cross the French border. The border was still within the city of Geneva – we just stopped by something that looked like a petrol station only without pumps, and then few uniformed guys checked our passports and even sent a couple with the wrong visas back to Geneva – the local bus stop was just about100 meters away from the border. It seemed funny to me the fact that one can take the local city bus in Switzerland and go to France for the price of public transport ticket. It is a known fact that Geneva has got borders with France along its perimeter – almost 143 kilometres of the line that is actually within the boundaries of the city.
Anyway, to get where I wanted I went to Chamonix. Chamonix is a very small town, not even a proper town, but more of a ski resort. Which means – there are more visitors then locals on the streets of Chamonix. Apparently, Chamonix is the capital of the first Winter Olympics Games. Doesn’t really surprise you, when you see the location of this little town. Squeezed in the narrow steep-walled canyon somewhere in the Apls, with the skiing routes of all categories running down from literally every peak from both sides in the valley…And although due to my usual luck I’ve got to Chamonix on the very last day of the skiing season, I still met few weird people walking in town in shorts and with the skies.
I had my fair share of skiing in my childhood in Kazakhstan, so the closing of a season didn’t upset me much. In fact, it was, of course, not winter sport that made me to come to Chamonix. For those who are not up for the thrill of aimless sliding down a very steep hill hitting 100 mph, Chamonix has few other, no less thrilling things to offer: to see the Glacier and to climb the South summit of Mont Blanc. Guess, which one I did?
The Mer de Glace is the second longest glacier in Europe – 11 kilometres of the ever moving ice river. Perhaps, the speed of 1 centimetre per hour doesn’t sound too impressive, but if you think of it in terms of 24 centimetres a day (87 meters a year) of the huge masses of ice sliding down from the snowy peaks, it does strike imagination. Down in the valley the waters of the river formed from the melting ice of Mer de Glace have enough power to run local hydroelectric power station.
To reach Mer de Glace is easy – you just hop on the tram and after 20 min of steep and winding climbing on the one-way rail track and enjoying the scenery along the way, you’ll arrive to the Montenvers – a little station-like place at elevation of 1913 meters.
There is a viewing platform there, a gift shop and a cable car down to the glacier itself. They have the ice grotto, sculpted in the glacier with the museum inside of it. However, I’d imagine it is difficult to keep the museum with the ice speeding down like a race car, so they had to cut a new one every year. My luck betrayed me and on a day of my visit the museum was closed for re-carving. The cable cars going down didn’t work either, so I had to be satisfied with the view of the glacier from the viewing platform. Which is anyway, the best view possible. I’ve attempted to walk down to the ice following the uncivilised path (and uncivilised – means – no steps, handrails or signs of directions and with the random climbing down the ladders that resembled the fire escape as they were rather narrow and cling to the very vertical wall of rocks.) So as I said, it was just an attempt to get down on the ice, which stopped successfully at the first encountered fire escapish ladder. There was no way of setting my precious feet on this verydangerouslylooking thing especially with my hands full of souvenir rocks I’ve just bought in a gift shop! I decided I am happy with the full impression of what the glacier is without literally walking on it.
Mer de Glace looks like a big and messy country road after a heavy rain season. The ice wasn’t the icy colour you would expect, but more of the grayish curvy lines mixed with a bit of random whites. It takes off somewhere above the clouds in the mountains that you can see on the backdrop and looks more clean up there. The scale of it doesn’t really make any big impression until your eyes find people walking bravely on its surface. At first I thought there is a colony of ants marching down there, but my camera magically zoomed them into flock of humans. Only then I started to appreciate the giganticality of the icy river.
I suspect there are better ways to observe and even experience the glacier, then taking the bitten route to the designated viewing points. But to find them one has to stay in Chamonix at least few days and I only had one. Besides I had to rush back to the valley for even more exiting adventure of a day – to conquer the Top of Europe.
More still to come
Mont Blanc is easy reachable from Geneva. Only about 1.5 hour by bus. Though you have to cross the French border. The border was still within the city of Geneva – we just stopped by something that looked like a petrol station only without pumps, and then few uniformed guys checked our passports and even sent a couple with the wrong visas back to Geneva – the local bus stop was just about100 meters away from the border. It seemed funny to me the fact that one can take the local city bus in Switzerland and go to France for the price of public transport ticket. It is a known fact that Geneva has got borders with France along its perimeter – almost 143 kilometres of the line that is actually within the boundaries of the city.
Anyway, to get where I wanted I went to Chamonix. Chamonix is a very small town, not even a proper town, but more of a ski resort. Which means – there are more visitors then locals on the streets of Chamonix. Apparently, Chamonix is the capital of the first Winter Olympics Games. Doesn’t really surprise you, when you see the location of this little town. Squeezed in the narrow steep-walled canyon somewhere in the Apls, with the skiing routes of all categories running down from literally every peak from both sides in the valley…And although due to my usual luck I’ve got to Chamonix on the very last day of the skiing season, I still met few weird people walking in town in shorts and with the skies.
I had my fair share of skiing in my childhood in Kazakhstan, so the closing of a season didn’t upset me much. In fact, it was, of course, not winter sport that made me to come to Chamonix. For those who are not up for the thrill of aimless sliding down a very steep hill hitting 100 mph, Chamonix has few other, no less thrilling things to offer: to see the Glacier and to climb the South summit of Mont Blanc. Guess, which one I did?
The Mer de Glace is the second longest glacier in Europe – 11 kilometres of the ever moving ice river. Perhaps, the speed of 1 centimetre per hour doesn’t sound too impressive, but if you think of it in terms of 24 centimetres a day (87 meters a year) of the huge masses of ice sliding down from the snowy peaks, it does strike imagination. Down in the valley the waters of the river formed from the melting ice of Mer de Glace have enough power to run local hydroelectric power station.
To reach Mer de Glace is easy – you just hop on the tram and after 20 min of steep and winding climbing on the one-way rail track and enjoying the scenery along the way, you’ll arrive to the Montenvers – a little station-like place at elevation of 1913 meters.
There is a viewing platform there, a gift shop and a cable car down to the glacier itself. They have the ice grotto, sculpted in the glacier with the museum inside of it. However, I’d imagine it is difficult to keep the museum with the ice speeding down like a race car, so they had to cut a new one every year. My luck betrayed me and on a day of my visit the museum was closed for re-carving. The cable cars going down didn’t work either, so I had to be satisfied with the view of the glacier from the viewing platform. Which is anyway, the best view possible. I’ve attempted to walk down to the ice following the uncivilised path (and uncivilised – means – no steps, handrails or signs of directions and with the random climbing down the ladders that resembled the fire escape as they were rather narrow and cling to the very vertical wall of rocks.) So as I said, it was just an attempt to get down on the ice, which stopped successfully at the first encountered fire escapish ladder. There was no way of setting my precious feet on this verydangerouslylooking thing especially with my hands full of souvenir rocks I’ve just bought in a gift shop! I decided I am happy with the full impression of what the glacier is without literally walking on it.
Mer de Glace looks like a big and messy country road after a heavy rain season. The ice wasn’t the icy colour you would expect, but more of the grayish curvy lines mixed with a bit of random whites. It takes off somewhere above the clouds in the mountains that you can see on the backdrop and looks more clean up there. The scale of it doesn’t really make any big impression until your eyes find people walking bravely on its surface. At first I thought there is a colony of ants marching down there, but my camera magically zoomed them into flock of humans. Only then I started to appreciate the giganticality of the icy river.
I suspect there are better ways to observe and even experience the glacier, then taking the bitten route to the designated viewing points. But to find them one has to stay in Chamonix at least few days and I only had one. Besides I had to rush back to the valley for even more exiting adventure of a day – to conquer the Top of Europe.
More still to come