Day 27: Chamonix

Day 27 · Chamonix

After breakfast I headed over to the Aiguille du Midi cable car station to see if I could get on a little earlier than my reservation (after a quick stop at a bakery for a sandwich). One benefit to traveling solo that I’ve discovered is that staff sometimes feel sorry for you and let you sneak onto things early, or add an extra seat at the bar when there are no more tables. Today was one of those lucky moments, though I was only like 15 minutes early so I don’t think it was that big of a deal.

I got on the first of what would be a series of cable cars to the first transfer just above the treeline. The car up was PACKED, and I suspect it was like that all day as it’s the last weekend of the season for these excursions. It moves really quickly, shooting up the mountain at a speed you wouldn’t guess. At the first transfer, you get onto another car about the same size to head up to the Aiguille du Midi/Mont Blanc viewing station.

This car also moves quickly up the increasingly shear face until you start to see ice and glacier. At the top you’re ushered into a cavernous space that leads out to a few walkways and things to do here at this station. On the way up, I just headed right for the next cable car – the panoramic line across the glacier.

These were small cars (4 seaters) in clusters of three that made their way across the Mont Blanc alpine range to the Italian border. Because it was so crowded I was smashed into a car with a man and his two 7ish year old boys, an experience I found deeply miserable. They did not shut up the whole time. Not even 10 seconds of silence across 25 minutes of empty glacier.

Despite the auditory misery of nonstop French child chatter, the views were spectacular. Rocky peaks poke out of the glacier along the path, and you sail over countless deep crevasses in the ice.

We eventually reached Pointe Helbronner, which was the end of the line for me today. Pointe Helbronner straddles the French/Italian border, and makes it so that you technically have crossed the alps via cable car by taking this trip. From my perspective, it’s where French and Italian families with broods of children come together as one to stop in the middle of stairwells, struck by sudden indecision.

Views were stunning – and they only allow you off onto the glacier if you have mountaineering gear. I saw some folks down there traipsing across the ice, and there were quite a few people in the larger initial cars with gear. If you keep going along the line, you end up down in an Italian town that I’m assuming is pretty similar to Chamonix, but I didn’t think it was necessary for me to pay the additional fare to see that side of the mountain.

After taking my photos, I headed back in another small car, this time mercifully full of adults who recognized the value in letting the silence of the glacier speak for some of the ride. At various points along the ride, the cables stop moving and you hang there, bouncing in the wind.

After I got back to the Aiguille du Midi station, I made my way through all the viewpoints – including taking the elevator up to the tallest point in the alps, and then waiting in line to stand in the glass box. As I mentioned the day I was in Lake Como, my line waiting skills are now at their peak. Not only did I have my book, but I also enjoyed my lunch sandwich while I waited!

I’m not sure the glass box was worth the hour wait in the end, especially since they take your photos pretty slapdash with your phone and they do a terrible job of it (like harried mall elves around Christmas), but it’s not like I had other plans today. And now I can say I stood in that glass box.

By now it was like 2pm and I’d been at altitude for like 4 hours and I was really feeling it. There were so many stairs at both stations, and even sitting in the little gondola I felt like I couldn’t catch my breath. I started to get a sharp headache and I couldn’t stop yawning (and I’d seen everything from all possible angles), so I headed back down to Chamonix in the large gondolas. They were not as full as they were headed up, but they still had a good number of people and screaming children with no sense of personal space and new toys to smash into unsuspecting women desperately trying to disassociate.

After the gondola touched down, I headed back to my room as quickly as possible for some well deserved solitude. Between the crowds and the altitude, I got very overstimulated. It was an absolutely perfect sunny day for this excursion weather-wise, and since it was Sunday I was one of many taking advantage. But it probably would have been a little less overwhelming had I been here on a weekday.

For dinner I didn’t wander far, my stomach doesn’t feel right from the altitude today so I was both starving and also not hungry at the same time. I got some chicken from a meh place that had a nice patio. Sauce was great, but the chicken was overdone. I guess I’ll have to learn how to make a good brown sauce when I get home and do it myself.

And now I’m pooped! So tired that I’m not even going to go to the hotel hot tub, because it’s on the 1st floor and I’m on on the 3rd floor (but they call it the 2nd floor) and I cannot imagine myself using those stairs again this evening.