We are now in the foot hills of Mont Blanc and its our 26th Campsite and the best to-date. Our location is Saint Gervais about 22km from Chamonix and at the foot of Mont Blanc. The weather is still very hot though a heavy thunder storm a few days ago cooled things down somewhat and also set off the flood warning sirens at 2.30am. The result of this was an emergency evacuation of the campsite and all residence of the valley to strategic assembly points. Well it turned out to be a false alarm, though in 1892 over 175 people died in a similar incident when the melt water under the glacier broke through and cascaded down the valley.
Our days are filled with mountain hiking and utilising the plethora of transport systems, rack tramways, cable cars, trains, coaches, buses, etc,etc to aid our ascent. Our first climb was via the Tramway Du Mont-Blanc which took us upto 2380m to the Nid d'Aigle. This is one of the most used routes for those wishing to scale Mont Blanc, so we were among mountaineers with ice axes, crampons, ropes, harnesses, it brought back memories of my climbing days and got me thinking about taking it up again......
When at the top the view of Mont Blanc and the Glacier was quite beautiful.
The descent down from the Nid d'Aigle follows a well trodden path and includes sections of quite exposed ledges and some man made steps. As you look back up mont Blanc you can see on of the refuges de Gouiter at 3863m the final stop off before the push to the summit of MB.
At an altitude of 1794m we came across a Himalayan style bridge spanning a glacial river. The bridge foot boards had large gaps between and it swung as you crossed it, though Harley didn't seem to mind as he dragged me over it.
Its quite strange walking on ski runs in the summer and coming across piste signs.
I would not have been able to get G across that bridge!!!
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