Beautiful Chamonix

From the balconyWow what a great start. We’ve a great room with a balcony looking directly up at Mont Blanc and the weather is beautiful. Letitia arrived safely and besides having to get reception to help her get into the room (as i was already asleep at 7.30pm) she is stoked with the town.

We are lucky to have a bed too as the town is packed out by super hardy trail runners! Turns out this is the week of the Ultra-Trail Du Mont Blanc. Five races through the rough high trails in the alps ranging from a mere 53kms, through 101, 119, 168, and 300kms!!! And each race has over 1500 entrants except for the 168km run which has 2300 entrants!! Phew and the high tech ultra light weight gear they use has to be seen to be believed.

Yesterday we headed up to about 4000m by a series of cable cars to the amazing Aguille du Midi. It was a favourite of mine from when Rod and I were here a couple of years ago and i wanted to be able to show Letitia. On the last occasion we’d travelled up there from the Italian side (Courmayeur). I was a bit worried about suffering from altitude sickness as the last time we’d had a week of walking over many high passes before scaling these heights. But as it turned out i didn’t have to worry about altitude sickness as i came down with a case of food poisoning which had me scrabbling for the nearest bin to throw up in. YUK!  I think it is the sickest I’ve been for a long time. I’m on the mend today but still feeling weak and touchy in the tummy. Not the ideal way to start a 200km walk in the alps. Gorgeous Letitia is sightseeing by herself today while I hang around the room feeling sorry for myself.

We’ll tackle our final pack this afternoon. Last chance to try to lighten the load before we are committed to dragging all that we have in our packs up hill and down dale for two weeks.

I’m hoping we have internet access in at least a few of the places we stay so i can send updates. Next post will be from up in the mountains somewhere.