Switzerland

We left the lovely Le Faucigny Hotel and made our way to Zermatt, via Tasch, where we left our car and took the train to Zermatt. 

Zermatt, Switzerland is a "car free" town. Which means there are no private cars for regular people or tourists to drive, but the business owners and city workers have electric cars and small buses that are quiet and quite quick. 

While I admire the idea of a "car free" town, I cannot say the current practice of driving silent electric cars through throngs of tourists very quickly is a safe practice. We did not see or cause any accidents, but they sure snuck up on us a couple times. 

The drive to Zermatt was less than three hours. Roundabouts seem to be the way in that part of the world. We went through so many roundabouts it's surprising we found our way with nary a wrong turn (Noah was driving, good thing). Roundabouts through the mountain towns was especially interesting. 

The train ride from Tasch was about 30 minutes. 

And thus, we landed in Zermatt, home of The Matterhorn. 

We were let off the train in a bustle of people, luggage in tow. We found our hotel using the handy dandy GPS on Noah's phone. It really wasn't far but there were a lot of people and so many shops that caught our eye. 

We stayed at the Hotel Beau Rivage, owned by a former olympic ski champion. We had a delicious lunch in the hotel restaurant and got our first taste of OH MY GOSH SWITZERLAND IS EVER MORE EXPENSIVE THAN FRANCE!!!!!! 

The day before, in Chamonix, Noah had gone biking up and down the mountain and was worn out. I, on the other hand, had gone shopping, and was ready to climb something. 

I talked Noah into a "short" hike (according to the hotel concierge) up a tiny bluff. Man, were we out of shape. 

We started hiking on this paved trail through the town that went up and up through the neighborhood until the neighborhood ended as well as the pavement and we were on a foot trail. We looked up and saw this funny little building WAAAY up on the bluff. We couldn't imagine what it was, and didn't think we would ever really know. 



Until 45 minutes (ish) later we reached it. It was a restaurant called "Edelweiss" way up there on the bluff. Quaint. Quite quaint. 

And not the top of the climb.



We walked through a beautiful mountain forest. Always going ... up. 

 The trail kept going up and up and the scenery through the mountain forest was beautiful. I was hoping to see The Matterhorn, pictures of which abound on the Internet, but didn't yet know where it was perched. 

We kept walking the trail and slowly came around a bend. 

Finally we cleared the wood and were in an open area, at the top of the rocky bluff. 

Yeah, we walked along the top of that. It looks really high up but it's just a baby mountain, really.

Noah was grumpy because he was tired. 

I was happy. 

And voila! There it was! OMG, so close! 

We slowly made our way down the mountain and saw some very interesting things.

Evidently there are natural Artesian wells in Switzerland, and they've created these natural spigots out of hollow trees to draw the water up. They just run naturally all day long. 

 Back at our hotel and discovered that right next to it was a river and on the bridge that went over the river was a perfect view of The Matterhorn. 

Later that night, when we were trying to sleep, we discovered that the bridge lookout was a very popular place for late night party goers.

Next installment, the Klein Matterhorn - the highest mountain lookout in the Alps at 12,800 something feet. It was very cool. Literally. 

Lac Bleu - Even Better than Lac Blanc

After taking a day to recover from our ascent on Lac Blanc, we got up early in the morning and took the cable up the mountain. Lac Bleu just happened to be up there, evidently not a big tourist attraction because there was only one other person there besides us, and we walked horizontally-ish across to the other mountain, where I saw Les Drus - the mountain I totally fell in love with. 

This is a photo of Les Drus that I discovered in my favorite shop in Chamonix. It is a huge photo; 4-5 feet across and about 2 feet tall. It's very impressive in person and I agonized my whole time in Chamonix as to whether to spend the $500 for an unframed photo. I decided that I needed to go check out this mountain in person before making the decision.

After getting off the cable we walked along a lush green meadow to reach Lac Bleu.

Then we reached the Lac. It was still quite early in the morning, and the colors were intense, the air was cool, and the sun was coming up behind the mountain.

 The Lac was surrounded by gigantic boulders. We decided we were going to walk around the lac; it was a smaller lac, and got halfway and realized the error of our ways, but were committed by then. 

Here's Noah walking around the Lac. See how big the boulders are?

From where he was standing

As we traversed the beautiful mountain we saw the sun trying to peep over the mountain. 

Yep, that's snow. 

It was beyond words beautiful. 

Then we got to walk across the mountain to Les Drus. We saw many amazing sites, including Aiguille Du Midi.

There is a look out on top of Du Midi. We didn't go up there but now I wish we had. From there it is supposed to have an amazing view of Mont Blanc.

I guess we save that for next time. 

But we saw other amazing sites.  

And a series of photos that brought the sun up over the mountain!

 Just starting to peep out around the mountain...

Oh my gosh, here it comes! 

There is is! 

That may have been the best part of my vacation. Such stillness, clarity, quiet beauty.

Ok, so, as usual, we had fallen off the path and had to find our way back to it in order to get across the mountain to see Drus. This included climbing on gigantic humongous rocks. 

Through beautiful wildflowers and rivulets.

A view across the valley where we stopped to snack. 

 Our path ahead ....

Looking across at the other side of the mountain and the village of Chamonix. 

  

 This side of the mountains are very green, lush, serene. 

 We had the most beautiful walk across the mountain to the other side where we met Les Drus, and took the train down the mountain. 

We saw lots of beautiful flowers. 

 A lovely spot at the lookout to Les Drus, full of wildflowers, rocky spaces, and amazing views of the mountain and the glacier in the mountain valley.  

And alas, my mountain!

I couldn't take enough pictures of my favorite mountain. 

It had a little pet cloud that day. 

And here is me with Les Drus!

And here is its glacier. 

 What a wonderful day that was. Probably my favorite of the whole trip, and that's saying something. 

And I was decided. I went to the shop to purchase the amazing, gigantic photo of Les Drus. To discover that it had been sold earlier that day. 

The photographer was up on Mont Blanc and couldn't get me another one before we left the next morning. 

Ah, well. 

Next installment will take us to Zermatt, Switzerland ... where we climbed to the base camp of The Matterhorn!

The Ascent on Lac Blanc

After recovering from the long drive through the tunnel and the stunning first evening in the beautiful valley of Chamonix surrounded by peaceful mountain peaks, we got up early the next day and moseyed over to the trail head to Lac Blanc.

Lac Blanc Stock Photo (the shack is no longer there)

Most people take the cable up the first 3000 feet. Not us. Oh no. We are not sissies. We are tough and strong and have been working out for a year in preparation for this. WE. ARE. WALKING. UP. THE. MOUNTAIN. 

So. 

Long walk. 

Kind of steep. 

Stopping along the switchback to hide in the shadow of the cable car structure, listening to all the wimpy people going the easy way up the mountain. 

Yanika told us it was a short hike from the top of the cable car station to Lac Blanc. 

Lac Blanc is perhaps one of the most photographed locations in the Chamonix Mont Blanc area. I was hooked when I saw it and it was very much a part of the reason we chose to come to this place. Therefore, we were very excited about finally seeing it in person.

It was a beautiful day and a lot of people had the same idea. 

Maybe half way up we discovered a trail that when up through the woods, instead of the switchbacks which were exposed to the sun and we were getting hot. The walk through the woods was beautiful.

Perhaps we overestimated our abilities.

But the views were gorgeous.

Chamonix valley from somewhere up the mountain. 

Well, I at least overestimated mine. 

My poor sad feet becoming happy. 

We finally made it to the top of the cable car, where it flattens out and there is a restaurant, bathrooms, a little lake, and an amazing view. We rested and had some snacks from our packs before continuing on. 

Yeah, that's Noah.

I fell in love with the wildflower fields that abounded the area. 

I mean, these are the same flowers I buy at the nursery in the spring at home! They look better here. 

And we begin the final ascent … which we thought was going to be an easy climb. Well. It wasn’t. First we had to traverse a field of boulders, which was actually really cool. The moss on the boulders was a neon green. 

Amazing. 

It was around this time that I started contemplating the fact that we still had to get down. And, how was that going to work? I was getting kind of tuckered out. 

After that we walked across some more beautiful green fields, two small lakes (is that Lac Blanc? No, Lac Blanc must be bigger) where I took my shoes off and splashed my worn feet in, and climbed up tiny narrow paths through the rocks and brush.

There were a lot of people and we all kind of took turns passing each other depending on who stopped to rest when. 

We had another snack on a big rock and saw some Chamois goats playing on the mountain! 

How totally cool is that??

The view of the mountains across the valley from us was amazing. Beautiful peaks and a glacier that looked like a giant trail of white running between the mountain peaks. You can kind of see the glacier's path between the mountains here.

More climbing. Steep and short switchbacks. We approached each bluff thinking “Lac Blanc MUST be on top of this one” only to see another bluff even steeper up ahead. We must have done that at least seven times, thinking … hoping … that Lac Blanc would be at the top of the next one. 

It was actually another whole 1000 feet from the cable car. And it was WAAAAY steeper than the first 3000 feet. 

Finally, in a completely anti-climatic fashion we reached Lac Blanc. I was so completely exhausted I was barely able to appreciate it. That and the fact that there were an awful lot of people there. But Noah walked around the giant rocks to the other side of the lake while I sat on a rock with my feet cooling off in the water. 

I wasn’t wearing a watch but the whole day took about seven hours, so we were a good 3 - 4 hours into our day by the time we turned around. 

Here is looking from the lake to the other side of the valley. Pretty mountain.

The first 1000 feet back down to the cable went pretty well because the scenery was so pretty and we had to stay really focused because going down is more dangerous than going up, being aware of every single step. 

We reached the cable and I don’t know what was wrong with us but the idea of taking the cable down didn’t even occur to us - ? We just kept walking down. 

See how tired we look? 

Well, tired but happy. My nose got sunburned. 

By the time we reached the bottom I could barely walk. One of my toes hurt from being jammed in my shoe with every step. Every step was, quite literally, excruciating. And when we reached the bottom, we still had a hike to the hotel. I couldn’t even talk; every iota of energy was focused on the next step. Noah was faring much better, but he’s 26 years younger. 

I was pretty sure I had just ruined my vacation and wasn’t going to be able to walk the next day. So I spent some time in the hot tub at the hotel. 

I'm pretty sure saved me because I was almost normal the next day.

In fact, this hot tub is the reason that I would return to this same hotel if I ever return to Chamonix (and I hope I do!)

But, to be on the safe side, the next day I went paragliding, which required almost zero walking, while Noah went up and down the mountain with a bicycle.