Why's it Harder Going Down?

Our first morning got off to an hilarious start as we all struggled to acquire the knack of taking down our Quecha pop up tents - there is a definite technique, including such descriptive moves such as the 'dying swan'. The tents take quite a lot of taming as they keep wanting to spring back up, not go down.

By 8.30 a.m. we were ready to start our Tour de Mont Blanc. It started with 2 modes of transport, neither of which involved walking! First we caught the local bus into Chamonix, and then we caught the telepherique up to La Flegere. The views were great, but being crammed into the car with big mountaineers who reeked of garlic and had loads of gear, wasn't much fun.

Despite gaining lots of height in the telepherique, our route was relentlessly up. It was quite a rocky path, but not too difficult, although we didn't skip along as nimbly as the ibex that crossed our path. Occasionally we had to cross small patches of snow which were deeper than Yorkie was tall.


After a couple of hours walking we reached a delightful plateau which was where we found the Lac Blanc which is behind us in our picture. I reminded us of our trip to Iceland where we saw lakes amid snow and glacier ice. It wasn't as cold as it might look but it was very windy. There was a conveniently (for us) situated mountain lodge serving delicious hot chocolate which was very rejuvenating. The lodge location wasn't so convenient for the proprietors though as there was no road to it, so all supplies had to be brought in by helicopter.


After our refreshment stop we started our descent. We like descents as being bears, we are sure and steady on our paws, but we know our female minder doesn't like them. We made sure to keep an eye on her but, after a steep start, she declared it o.k. and we all enjoyed the fixed ladder that helped us down an otherwise difficult stretch ...


... we weren't so keen on the weather closing in though, and yes, it did come on to rain. We descended many more metres than we'd climbed and it took quite a while, but we were enjoying ourselves and all got down safely.

It was quite a wet evening, but thankfully the camp site had a large wooden shelter and that night we were eating a set meal in the camp site restaurant, so we didn't get too wet except for dashing between our tents and the site facilities.

Day 1 of walking got the thumbs up and we were looking forward to more.

Lots of love, George, Yorkie and Gio xxx