29/05/2000

trip to Chamonix

Wow! This is basically a summary of the trip as it went for us. The folks on the trip were:

Pictures from this trip can be found here. The first of each set of three is a medium-sized, the second is the original off of the camera, and the third is a 150xwhatever thumbnail. They'll be integrated into this page soon, but for now they're just up there. No weeding of bad pictures has been performed yet, so you'll get a few ugly ones.
Below I've selected a few good shots. The thumbnail is just that; after it you can click on the [orig] link for the original shot off of the camera or the [medium] link for a lower resolution, but still viewable picture.

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We left Georgia Tech Lorraine right after the French class at around 8pm and traveled by bus to the main train station in Metz. After arriving we reconnoitered and found the proper train platform (voie) for the trip. Our train left at around 8:50pm, so after that we settled into a fairly long trip. The first significant transfer occurred at Dijon, which is only a couple of hours south of Metz via train. Here we had a fairly significant layover, so we went outside of the train station to find some food or refreshments. Upon riding up the escalator from the platform, we were greeted with one of the most disgusting scenes you could imagine -- trash everywhere, lots of weird looking industrial equipment, and loud noises. After our eyes adjusted some, we realized that there had been a David Halliday concert there that evening and that we showed up right after everyone had cleared out, but before anything had been cleaned up. (So I'm not afraid of Dijon anymore -- anyone who's ever been around the Music Midtown stages before it gets cleaned up is familiar with the kind of mess we saw there).

Charlie and I had a beer in a little pub/bar across the way from the train station and we all generally snacked until it was time to move on. The next train was reasonably comfortable for sitting, but didn't do much for sleeping (so I didn't sleep all that well). The seats at least reclined, but there wasn't really enough space for me to stretch out on. After that ride, we had an 8 minute window to transfer to the next train at St. Gervais. We got off of the train thinking that we might have to book it to find the connecting train, but it wasn't really that bad. We basically walked across the platform and hopped onto a single or double car electric train and sat down. The whole trip fit into about 45 seconds of the 8 minutes budgeted, so we were fine there.

After that, we rode the small train from St. Gervais up to Chamonix, stopping many times along the way at smaller towns or stops in the middle of nowhere. This traincar was older, but nice. The electric power to it was supplied by a third rail on the ground, as opposed to the overhead lines used by most of the SNCF railcars.

We arrived in Chamonix at around 0910, giving us plenty of time to see the town. Our first priority was getting to the Office de Tourisme, and then to the Office de la Haute Montagne, where we found a knowledgeable woman who sold us some trail maps and gave some good advice about the current snow line and other tips. I think we got food after this, and then went to find our "hotel," the Gite de Vagabond. The Gite is basically a dorm -- for 70 FRF per person per night, we got a 6 person room with 6 beds and a sink; two toilets and two showers were located just down the hall and the facilities were modern, clean, and comfortable. The bottom floor of the Gite has a small bar/restaurant in it, and had we been so inclined, we could have checked our email and whatnot for about 1frf/minute. We wisely chose to instead experience the outdoors. For those interested in staying there while they visit Chamonix on a budget, I'd recommend it wholeheartedly.

Gite Le Vagabond - Chamonix Mont-Blance -- 365 avenue Ravanel-le-Rouge, 74400 Chamonix Mont-Blanc, te'le'phone 04 50 53 15 43, fax 04 50 53 68 21.

At this point it would be prudent to point out that Chamonix is where "rich people go skiing." (no attribution to that quote; I think it was me who said it, although I'm undoubtably not the first). This makes the town quite interesting -- there's a good bit of bending in the French ways to accomidate the American/foreign tourists, although it's still very nice. For example, almost everything is open on Sunday morning. This is unusual in France, and unheard of in Metz. We managed to hit the town exactly in between the ski season and the summer mountain biking/hiking/tourism season, so things were pleasantly open, but not too crowded. Most of the tourists we ran into were really interesting, and we experienced no congestion or crowds at anything. Some construction was underway (due to the nice weather/low crowds, according to some locals I asked).

The first afternoon we went up hiking on the south side of the town, opposite Mont Blanc and friends. I believe we went up something like 1000 feet; the actual town is around 1030m above sea level. The hike was fun, and the only problem we experienced was that Veronica's boots weren't really broken in. (Thus, she had a few blisters which will take some time to heal). After the hike, we came back and had a good dinner, and then hung out in the room a little before going to bed. We met an interesting girl staying in our hotel; her name was Julie and she was a photography major at Montana State. She had spent the previous academic term studying in Florence, Italy, and was now exploring around Europe for several weeks on her own.

After touching the beds at about 10pm we were all gone until our alarms sounded at 8am. A little snoozing later we were all back in bed until 10am, at which point we woke up and found it lightly drizzling and overcast outside. Rather than doing the big hike we'd planned on, we went into town to find some food and shop around a little. At about 2pm a break in the clouds was observed and a mad dash to change at the hotel ensued.

Dressed and equipped with cameras, we made our way to the bottom of the cablecar and purchased tickets for 160fRf each (20% student discount). At 1530 we got on and rode the cablecar up from 1030m to 2317m to the Plan de l'Aigulle, where we changed cablecars and rode up to 3842m up to Aiguille du Midi. About halfway through the cable car ride we broke through the clouds, rendering a breathtaking view of the Alps surrounding us. We spent around an hour up at this altitude and a little higher, taking pictures and looking at Mont Blanc and the surrounding faces. It was well below freezing, but not terribly uncomfortable due to our warm clothes and the light wind. Sunglasses were definitely a nice thing to have, though.

It was definitely possible to feel the altitude (at around 12000 feet); going up many steps in succession was trying. We met several interesting folks at the top -- Charles talked to some hardcore skiiers that were heading down most of the mountain from the top. We also met an interesting woman who was on a business trip from the states visiting Nokia and the like and came down to Chamonix for a quick visit.

Upon our return to the valley we found a nice restaurant and settled in for a good dinner. Veronica had fondue and Charlie, Vanessa, and I had a good raclette. Luis only had dessert since he snacked heavily on his quick hike up the south side after the cablecar ride. The raclette was interesting -- we managed to put one of the pieces of meat on the top of the grill, thinking that it needed a little cooking. Our waiter and the manager of the restaurant politely explained to us that the meat wasn't to be cooked, and they were able to close the windows after about 20 minutes of venting the smoke. ;) (All good things are learning experiences, few are this amusing).
In the restaurant we ran into a nice Canadian couple -- the man was a software engineering guy at IBM Vancouver. He frequently traveled to San Jose and Austin, and he and I even knew a few people in common.

After dinner, Luis, Veronica, and Vanessa went clubbing, ending up in an interesting place (ask them about it sometime). Charlie and I thought better of it and went to bed. The next day, we got up at around 8am, and (horror of horrors) ate McDonalds for breakfast. It was actually reasonably priced; I think I paid around 25frf for two pancakes, a coke, some orange juice, and a sausage biscuit. The sad thing was that this was a 10-register McDonalds and that they accepted credit cards for payment.

The train ride back was mostly uneventful, with the exception of the 20 minute delay from Lyon to Metz, causing us to take the 12am bus instead of the 11pm, but that wasn't a major problem at all.

All in all, we had a great time. Charlie and I will probably head back to Chamonix sometime later in the summer to do some more serious hiking/backpacking, but it was nice to experience things at a slow pace first. For those who visit in the future, my recommendation for times to do the cablecar ride up to the Aigulle du Midi is between 0700 and 0800 -- that's before the clouds come up from the dew in the valley and after sunrise. We got very lucky with our clear weather.