2091 miles (3365 km) walked in 110 days.
So this is a blog about my experiences getting high. Not on drugs, but on altitude and a fair amount of adrenaline at times. The highest mountain in Europe is Mont Blanc which rises to an impressive 4,806 metres. Compare this to the highest mountain in the UK, Ben Nevis, which rises to 1,345 metres and you start to understand just how tall that is. The first glimpses of the massif around Mont Blanc were incredible. I walked to a town one evening and didn’t realise that I would see it from there and when I did I just stopped and stared. I have never really been that interested in the really high mountains as it requires a whole new set of skills to deal with the snow and ice at the top but I have to admit, now I have seen it, I would love to test myself against it. But I certainly don’t have the gear or the experience to try it on this trip so I contented myself with a trip to Chamonix, the big town at the bottom of the mountain instead.
Chamonix is another town that I am a bit unsure of. I loved the fact that it was crammed full of hikers. What was really nice was that many of them were far fitter and crazier than I am. I would be walking up a hill thinking that it is ridiculously steep and someone would just run past me! I would be carefully crossing a waterfall thinking about every step as I go and someone would just run and jump it. I would reach the snow line and stop and a group of people would just take out their crampons and continue marching upwards. I loved that, as, not wanting to brag, but most places I have been on this trip I have been the quickest one heading up the mountain or the one walking the furthest that day. I found it really inspiring to be around all of those hikers being their awesome selves! The town itself had a bit of a party atmosphere and the music kept me up a couple of times which wasn’t that fun. I don’t really do parties and clubs so it wasn’t for me though I could see that, for the right person, it would be a fun atmosphere to spend time in.

What was definitely fun however was the walking. I did a few different hikes on either side of the valley: Walking up the northern side was great as you got brilliant views of Mont Blanc and the surrounding peaks, whilst walking up the Mont Blanc massif was awesome as I got right up to the snow level at 2,800 metres, the highest I have been on this trip by some way. The rainfall was both a blessing and a curse. It did limit me at times to carefully picking when I went out but it also really fuelled the waterfalls and rivers. There is a great circular walk that goes along the massif at about 2,000m and picking a course through waterfall after waterfall without getting completely drenched was a lot of fun.
After Chamonix I was expecting a bit of an anti-climax and wondered if leaving the big peaks was a good decision at all. I went to a place that was recommended to me a few weeks earlier called Le Cirque du Fer a Cheval and I can honestly say I was left speechless at seeing the place. It is stunning. It is dramatic. It is awe inspiring. And, here I go, it is the best place I have visited on this entire trip. Easily. That is hard to say as I have been to some amazing places but this stands out and I struggle to see how I could possibly better it.
It sits at the end of the valley and, thankfully, they have restricted the traffic that can get to the end of it. Effectively it is a horseshoe of mountains that are dramatically steep and have more waterfalls than I thought possible for an area that is only a few miles long. I think I have come at the perfect time as, not only has there been a fair bit of rainfall, but there is also a lot of snow high up which is fuelling the waterfalls as it melts. I had one of my strange thoughts which prompted the video below as it dawned on me that these waterfalls lead into the River Arve which then leads on to the Rhône. I have seen the Rhone in numerous places on this trip and have now seen it from its source (well, one of them) and then at numerous points all the way down to the ocean, hundreds of miles away! It seems like ages ago that I first crossed this massive river down on the Med!
The valley is forested and has a fairly decent array of wildlife, though I have to admit I didn’t see a few of the things I wanted to see (marmots and golden eagles) though I know from instagram that they do live there. As you can guess, with so many waterfalls, there is also a very fast flowing river down the middle of it upon which many people went rafting which looked great fun. I found the valley so enticing that every single evening, even after doing quite a few miles during the days, I would go for a small stroll that inevitably ended up being between 3 and 5 miles long.

Every walk I did in the valley was great but the highlight for me was climbing out the steep end of the cirque and heading for a lake high up in the mountains. Again there were more waterfalls to be crossed on the way and, as I climbed, I noticed that the snow here was at a much lower level than other places. Despite only being accessible by some extremely steep paths, there are a couple of shelters on the way up offering food and drinks which was very welcome. Just before I got the the second shelter there was a bit of snow to be crossed. I asked someone coming down if the lake was accessible and he took one look at my trainers and said that I would need crampons to get there. I was a little bit gutted and so, when I got to the refuge, which was surrounded by quite a lot of snow and set in a really nice little sheltered spot, I asked a few more people. They said that it could be walked so, just to be on the safe side, I also asked one of the people at the refuge. They also said a tentative yes as well so I decided to go for it, at least to see how far I could safely get. Despite there being a lot of snow (I had to cross stretches that were a few hundred metres long) it was actually quite easy and safe and a few tests early on showed me that I would be able to get back down safely again. Climbing up the snowy slope I couldn’t help but think of what my mum used to say when I wanted to climb a tree which was ‘climb as high as you want but only if you know how you are going to get down again!’ Good advice and it served me well here. I was also lucky enough to meet a lovely bunch of Swiss walkers when I was climbing up and, after inviting me to eat lunch with them next to the partly frozen lake, we climbed down the mountain together which was really nice.

Recommendation: Camping Le Pelly

The theme of meeting nice people continues as the campsite I stayed at was brilliant for it. It is right up the top of the valley and has the best views of any campsite I have ever seen and I have stayed in some amazing spots. The facilities are all that you need but what really makes the campsite nice, apart from the lovely people running the place, is the pitches. They are big enough that you can hide away if you want to but they are also open which just seemed to encourage a bit of a community feel. I met so many lovely people on the site (one couple I managed to meet on just about every single walk I did there) and there was a great spirit of recommending places and exchanging notes on routes.
Here is the link for when you need it, which you will… ;) https://www.lepelly.com
There was also a really special 30 minutes on the campsite that made me realise something about mountains that I think I had always known but never really thought of or put into words. There were a few of us who had been there for a day or two already and had already taken lots of photos of the mountains and waterfalls when, all of a sudden, the sun, which was setting below us in the valley, illuminated the cliffs around us in an amazing way. The rocks glowed brightly and the spray from the waterfalls made incredible colours that just captured everyone. People would be walking to or from the sanitary block, sometimes wearing little more than a towel or sometimes carrying a pile of dishes to be washed, and they would just stop in their tracks. Every single person there was transfixed. As always, we all got our cameras out to capture the moment but, unusually, when we had got the pictures we wanted we just stood and stared. Everyone! It made me think all sorts of poetic things about the power of mountains and I just couldn’t help but think that for all the storms, rivers, waterfalls and avalanches that we see or hear about, the greatest power that mountains possess is how they can just absolutely capture people’s imaginations and hearts. I cannot imagine a time in my life when I won’t want to be in the mountains and I think that I won’t be alone in remembering that sunset on the mountains for a very, very long time.
I only wish i was better at photography as the pictures I have got are nice but really don’t do it the justice it deserves! I may have some better ones when I can buy the right adapter for my proper camera but this one taken on my phone will have to do for now.

Thankfully, I can’t think of any idiocies that have occurred over the last few days however I thought this might make you all laugh: I just received the most random compliment from a French lady! She came over to me and said that my system for washing, folding and then organising my laundry was ‘parfait’ (perfect) and ‘précis’ (precise). She mentioned my system for sorting socks and somehow seemed interested in my explanation of how, if you have a pile of right and left socks and you pick one up, statistically, you are more likely to pick up a correct (the opposite footed) sock than an incorrect one. Yup - I know how to flirt! She was so enthusiastic about it and even made me feel guilty by saying something about her husband which I didn’t quite understand but I don’t think it was great. It was a shame that she was about 30 years older than me really, but I have learnt one thing: When I start dating, I need to make sure the first date is at a launderette, so that I can show off my insane skills, and I need to make sure I talk about statistics, just to seal the deal. Surely I can’t fail with that, right?

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