Chamonix and Lac Blanc

Date: September 21, 2018 – September 27, 2018
Location: Chamonix, France

After leaving Niki and Ouzo we drove to Lyon, France, returned the rental car, and then boarded a bus to Chamonix, France.

Chamonix is a ski town at the base of Mont Blanc, the highest mountain in Europe at 4,808 meters, around 15,774 feet. It has become a place to visit year-round as some of the lifts are open in the summer for hiking, mountain biking and paragliding.

The first Winter Olympics were held in Chamonix in 1924. The ski jumps are in the middle of the below picture.

This is a view from our Airbnb. Mont Blanc is the mountain on the right, covered in snow.

We had a couple days that were cloudy, so it was interesting to see the mountains over a cloud layer.

This is the Église Saint-Michel church. It was very cloudy on this particular day, but there are mountains behind it.

I was surprised to see so many flowers in bloom around the town.

On clear days, there were many people paragliding in the area.

The cable car to Aiguille du Midi, 3,842 meters or around 12,605 feet, was closed as the cable is being replaced. At the top you can see French, Swiss and Italian Alps. The station also has a museum, restaurant, souvenir shop and viewing platforms.

September 24, 2018

Lac Blanc Hike

Lac Blanc is a popular hike to a lake on the mountain of Aiguille de la Tête Plate.

In the morning we went to Les Praz de Chamonix, a village north of the center of Chamonix, to take a cable car up.

There are buses to get to Les Praz de Chamonix but we choose to walk. The walk was nice. It was flat along the gushing, muddy river.

Just before arriving at the cable car we walked by the Golf Club de Chamonix, an 18-hole golf course.

We would have liked to take the Téléphérique de La Flégère cable car and then take the L’Index cable car further up to make more of a loop. However, from September 16th to December 9th the L’Index lift is closed.

This is La Flégère gondola we took up the mountain.

At the top of La Flégère, the altitude is 1,894 meters, or around 6,214 feet.

After getting off the gondola there were other ski lifts in the area that only operate in the winter.

The hike started out with some large switchbacks.

When the sun was out it was warm.

On the way up to Lac Blanc, we passed heards of sheep and goats that were fenced in.

There were some breaks in the clouds so we were able to see some of the mountains on the other side of the valley.

We made it to Lac Blac at an elevation of 2,352 meters, around 7,716 feet.

At Lac Blanc is a building you can sleep overnight in. For 2018, due to a lease dispute, the building didn’t open.

The lake is smaller than I was expecting it to be.

We sat and waited awhile hoping that the fog would clear up and we could have a better view.

There were short breaks in the fog so we could see some of the mountains. This is the exact same spot as the photo above, just minutes later.

On the way down, the clouds cleared up for a couple minutes.

While descending back to the lift, we didn’t see the sheep and goats in the area that we saw them in on the way up. Where could they have gone…

Shortly after, we heard the bells that a couple of the sheep wore, before we the herd in the distance. They were on the move!

The heard was moving down the mountain. There was no one guiding them or directing them as far as we could tell.

There were many different kinds of sheep and goats. Some of them had large horns.

We liked the white and black ones best, since the color of their fur changed in what appeared to be a straight line, as if they were dipped in a color to dye them.

Here is a picture of the sheep wearing the bell. Even just one bell was loud.

Brian went down to look out at the village and the goats continued to come up. One with the large horns started walking right towards him.

The heard was covering a large area and made it quite far. I’m not sure where they were going to as they continued to go past the cable car.  It didn’t look like there were any people or dogs leading them.

The hike was very good, even though there were more clouds then we would have liked.