Thursday 21 June 2012

21st - Arrival in Chamonix

I crashed at my sister’s who lives close to the airport, so from getting out of bed and arriving at the hotel in Chamonix was fairly easy. I flew to Geneva from where I travelled with a taxi service that brought me straight to the door. Easy peasy.

Safely arrived at Chamonix I realized that most shops are closed in the middle of the day, giving me a good reason for having lunch and just wandering around. Ended up buying the boots, crampons and gaiters for the trip to Russia – far from everything, but at least the major things have been acquired.

We are leaving at 0800 tomorrow morning, catching a bus to start off with but expecting that the trek will be harder than just sitting in a bus…

Outside there is some kind of music festival and someone’s playing some quite loud music. Well – calling it music would be an offence to music. They are growling – loud and bad. Can’t they go somewhere else? Please?

We are 12 in the group; 6 Canadians, one Scot, one American, one Aussie, two Kiwis and me. Our guide is a Scot, too – little strange as this is the first Gap trip I am participating in where they don’t use a local resource. I assume it’s due to lack of locals, but it doesn’t really matter as he seems really cool and laid back. And he hasn’t done the trek before, either, so he’s just as excited as us. This will be interesting.

According to the plan we should have spent the night in Les Chapieux the day after tomorrow but because they have run out of room we will be getting a lift to Vallée des Glaciers, 5 km further ahead instead where they will have room for us. A little cheating, maybe, but it means that the following day which is by far the longest will be slightly shortened.

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