Itinerary for today: From our hotel (hotel Richemond) in Chamonix we walked to Les Praz and take the cable car to La Flégère (1,860m – 6100). The trail today is named the 'Grand Balcon' and is on the opposite side of the valley from Mont Blanc, affording excellent views of the whole massif lying to our south. Initially we contour and then climb to reach the high point of the day, Lac Blanc (2352m - 7715ft). The trail descends and then contours high above the valley before dropping steeply to the hamlet of Les Frasserands and Montroc (1,371m - 4500ft). In the afternoon there is a very short section of ladders/steep steps with handrails to descend. We return to our hotel in Chamonix in the afternoon.
8.00 hours walking. 500m – 1640ft up, 980m – 3220ft down. That said, Lisa’s app reflected 6.59 miles and an elevation gain of 1783.
We made sandwiches for lunch and had a buffet breakfast where the croissants weren't wonderful, but the bread was good.
We had a bus ride to the cable car and started up the mountain to the trail start
Lisa and I made our first steps on our hiking journey together. I was quickly clear that her
pace is faster than mine. She was at the start of the group and I was near the end.
At the top of the ski lift there were beautiful views of mountains - I actually had to ask to confirm the mountain I was looking at was Mont Blanc!!
The weather was glorious and clear. Temperatures when we started must have been in the 80s but soon felt good as we got higher with a light breeze.
The cable car up was nice and we had a lovely view - that said - this was my most difficult hike of the trip. I had such problems that I almost went home at the end of the day. It was hot. The track was rocky. I couldn't catch my breath. I was almost dead last getting to the high point for the day and the elevation gain was the least of the entire tour.
At the top we stopped for a snack and a cool drink. I started talking in Russian with Peter and that was kind of fun.
The afternoon was great because it was ALL downhill. There were some challenging stairs and 2 ladders to negotiate. We had to wait a bit to get down the ladders, but they weren't nearly as bad as I expected - I thought these would be the difficult part of the day, but the stairs were more challenging.
We walked down via a lake - Lac Blanc - which wasn't much to look at. We finally stopped for lunch where I took my shoes off to air my feet. My lunch had the same topography as the mountains.
At the end of the day we took the mountain train back to Chamonix and the hotel for a rest and dinner.
Dinner was better - Tartiflette with mushrooms. It was hot and cheesy. I had a picture taken with the "other" Chris to tease my Chris. I even had a beer.
We got a WhatsApp group set up. Shaun is still a bit strange and I can't get any information about how to set up the massage for my first free day - disappointing. About half way through the night my stomach starts acting up with something like food poisoning - thank goodness I brought anti-diarrhetics. Turns out most of us had the same issue and Sue thinks it's from the raw food the previous night.
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