Well, perhaps I lost any hope to write a longread about my autumn trip, so I am going to show a couple photos and just make some notes…
I was lucky enough to catch the warm period between some rainy weeks, so this trip was like an extra peace of summer, which wasn’t too hot in our region and I felt some deficiency of warm and bright sun. That way, I extended summer a bit and made a shift to warm up in October Alps.
During the trip, we made a circle which is usually called Tour du Mont Blanc, walked in 3 countries: France, Italy and Switzerland. This path is one of the most popular trekking routs in Alps, it length is around 170 km, and it could be passed in 7 days. The highest point is around 2600m on the mountain pass, which is called Col des Fours. Also, there are 6 other mountain passes, so the whole ascent/descent of attitude is about to 10 kilometers.
As usual, I hadn’t read a lot about the track before the trip, so I was unprepared for that each day we started from one valley, walked up on a mounting pass and fell down to camping in another valley. Our guide explained to us that it is forbidden to stay on the mounting ridges just in tents without any official camping, so we had to ascend and descend every day and this was hard for me and my knees, even though I’d never had troubles with descents before.
Also, we had a perfect group. I guess, the time for the trip wasn’t popular enough, so we had only 3 members (my partner, one more person and I) plus a guide, which made the average speed quite high. This fact was also unexpected for me, so I was a bit upset during the first days because I had no chance to keep the speed at the appropriate level and felt like a weak sister. Overall, I put up with my endless lagging and the trip became better.
However, we didn’t walk fast enough, because we often met people, who moved much faster than our group. Probably, it was because we had full equipment with tents and food, while most people walked in the Alps Mountains just with small backpacks with some clothes inside them and stayed at refuges or private hotels. Some of the passersby were running on mountains, some were older than we were and both of these notices were amazing. I often think about the extension of my active period, but still haven’t any idea or decision, so I just admire such people, who can save their lifestyle for advanced age.
All in all, we finished our track in 7 days and spent one additional day in village Shamony, which is the birthplace of alpinism, mounting tracking and hiking, so nowadays this place is like a small capital for the producers equipment for such activities. The whole streets with special shops and brands, where you can buy any you need and want for outdoor activities. To my partner’s happiness, we were strictly limited in the total amount of our staff, so I just kept window-shopping.
Also, there are 2 other much more than shopping interesting sights – the peak Aiguille du Midi and the glacier Mer de Glace. The peak is 3842 m height and you can get to the peak by two cable lifters in two steps. You need to make a change on 2317 m above the sea level and the end is on 3777m height. We spent more than 3 hours in the observation deck, visited several museums, watched a documentary and enjoyed the perfect views on the valley under the peak.
We got to another famous attraction the glacier Mer de Glace by the Montenvers Railway, which was built in 1909 year when tiny trains delivered respectable gentlemen in hats and madams in long skirts and with umbrellas to the glacier. The trains still work, but the landscape has changed greatly, because of global warming. Although the length of the glacier is 12 km, the area is 33.1 km2, and the ice thickness reaches 400 m, the glacier is melting so fast, that this looks scary, when you observe the lifeless channel of the thawing off glacier and when you went down to upstairs inside the glacier and see the point tablets with the previous levels and dates. It goes away more than 30 cm per year from 1939 and the glacier lost nearly a quarter of their volume in the last 100. Here you can see obviously how global warming influences the landscape and understand the real consequences like the lack of clear water for such regions. Of course, during our track, we observe glaciers, which also melted and went away from their start positions, but here we got the full impression of this part of global warming trouble.
Our trip lasted a couple days in Milan and Como, but this probably will be the next story.