Mer de Glace – Ice Cave and Glacier in Chamonix
Date: September 25, 2018
Location: Chamonix, France
On September 25, 2018 Brian and I did the Gran Balcon Nord trail.
We started by walking the short distance to the Montenver train station to take the rack railway up.
The train ride up was steep and had nice views.
We got off the train and were at the Mer de Glace glacier. Mer de Glace literally translates to “sea of ice” in English.
There is a lookout at the top.
At the top there is also a small, free crystal museum.
This is the cable car to go down to the glacier.
The glacier has melted a lot in 30 years.
When the cable car was originally built in the 1980s, it stopped at what used to be the top of the glacier. The glacier has receded in height year after year as it melts.
Now there are 500 stairs going down to the glacier.
Walking down there are signs to show how high the glacier used to be.
Each year in the spring the glacier is carved out so that people can go inside an ice cave.
There was a lot of water running down from the melting glacier.
Inside the Ice Cave it was chilly.
It is amazing to see how blue the ice is.
We needed to walk back up all of the stairs. The stairs were definitely worth it to see the ice cave, and many others felt the same way.
After the ice cave we started our hike towards Mont Blanc. Instead of going directly to Plan de l’Aiguille we went up to Le Signal.
At Le Signal, an altitude was 2,204 meters or around 7,231 feet.
A portion of the trail is made from the surrounding rocks.
Another part of the trail is flat with gorgeous views of the valley.
There is a section of switch backs going down.
A path around rocks.
All with Mont Blanc visible in the distance.
We got to Plan de l’Aiguille and took the gondola down.
The gondola brought us right back to our Airbnb (literally across the street). It was a great day and we had wonderful views. We really liked the ice cave.
