If any of my climbing or mountaineering buddies ever have a chance, go to Chamonix.
Ryan was waiting for Ev and I when we arrived at the airport Friday night and we proceeded to have excited chatter about pretty much everything for the hour and change shuttle ride to our Chalet. By the time we arrived, it was about 12:30am, and it took us a solid 45 minutes to calm down enough to even try to go to sleep. We were all excited to get up early and climb the 6-pitch Voie Frision-Roche route on Le Brevent.
When we woke up Saturday morning, it was doing the one thing that wrecks a climber's day: raining. Not hard, but enough that everything was wet and no one was sure if/when it would stop. It then came to our attention that the cable car we were planning to take up the mountain to shorten the approach (otherwise about a 2.5 hour hike) wasn't running. After some discussion, we decided it was probably best to scrap Le Brevent and hit up a crag closer to town with some southern exposure to dry the rock out. By the time we made it into Chamonix Mt-Blanc, it had stopped raining and the sun was starting to
think about coming out. We made it to a crag around 10:30, and, despite the fact that the rock was still kind of wet and a little slimy, decided that it would be ok to do some easy routes until things dried out a bit. And I must say, for three people who really miss mountains, the view from the top of a wall is something special.
As the morning progressed, the weather continued to improve. By 12:30 it was glorious and we were no longer the only people at the crag.
Naturally, Ryan had to take a trademark "Amy and Ev staring creepily at each other" picture. We have so many iterations of this picture from all of our travels and adventures...
The view of the Chamonix Valley is something else. As we looked across the valley at the mountains, Ryan and Ev started talking about wanting to climb one of the mountains. The massive (and incredibly beautiful) Aiguille de Midi (better known as the "gateway to the alps), and the Les Pelerins glacier.... needless to say, my usual group of climbing friends would probably have ditched me at the wall and grabbed their crampons to do some spur-of-the-moment mountaineering.
After around 4 hours of climbing, we were all absolutely
starving. We were going to stop at the nearest restaurant to have lunch, then catch the cable car up the Aiguille du Midi (elevation 3,842m) to get "high."
The lingo of my friends (and boyfriend) is kind of amazing.
En route to very much needed lunch (6 hours post-breakfast), we decided to see if there was a restaurant at the top of the mountain. Food on top of a mountain is always better. So we walked (about 20 minutes) to the cable car and rode it up. The view was absolutely amazing (part of me is waiting to hear Jesse's deadpan "well, did you expect it
not to be?"), although the boys were complaining that they felt bad because they didn't "earn" the elevation. Silly mountaineers.
By the time we reached the top of the cable car, we were all so hungry we were borderline psycho. A rapid bee-line was made to the cafeteria where we discovered, much to our chagrin, that it was closing in 10 minutes and we couldn't get sandwiches, only the limited selection of baked goods (i.e. donuts, muffins, and apricot tarts), candy bars, and chips. This was, to say the least, not what we wanted to eat, but the hunger factor was so strong that we looked at each other, shrugged, and proceeded to buy the most expensive meal consisting of only sugar that I have ever had.
I can not stress enough that we were incoherently hungry.
I really, really miss mountains. I didn't realize how used to having them around I was until we moved to one of the flattest countries on earth.
We had only been able to explore the nifty tourist center thingy for about 45 minutes before being informed that they closed at 4:30 and we needed to leave. This made us very sad, especially since the cable car tickets were a bit on the expensive side. We took the last cable car down to the midpoint and decided to walk down. At least that way we would kind of earn part of the mountain. Ish.
Plus, we really wanted to enjoy the mountain for a little bit longer.
The walk down the mountain took 2 hours. Unsurprisingly, we all were feeling the elevation a little at the top, and the lack of real food coupled with constant exercise was once again manifesting as an intense desire to eat.
By the time we made back to town, we had decided to get food at the first restaurant that didn't look like they were super fancy. After all, three, mid-20's kids with backpacks and not smelling super great generally aren't acceptable clientele for nice restaurants.
We found a place called L'Impossible that looked like a little bit like a pub/restaurant from the outside. Perfect. We found the front door and asked a lady outside who appeared to be on a smoke break if they were open. We were led inside and up a set of stairs into.... well, it turns out that it was a nice joint. Whoops. But they sat us no questions asked, so they couldn't have minded too much. Actually, I'm sure we weren't the first group of starving hikers to wander in looking for good food.
Interesting Facts of Europe #1
The French only export some of their wine, so I would strongly recommend asking the sommelier for a recommendation. The wine we were brought was very, very good.
The food was also quite good. Ryan and I got homemade pasta (mine was gorgonzola spinach ravioli with a pear-marcopane sauce that was, in short, bloody amazing). Ev decided to be daring and tried their wild boar special (unfortunately, it turns out that wild boar isn't that great. Now we know). To appease my foodie family, here's some food porn.
(I am of the opinion that I got the best dish, but that may just be because I have a thing for delicate sauces)
It was dark by the time we left the restaurant. This was about the point we realized we'd made a bit of an oopsie...
Lesson #1 of Europe:
When you don't actually have data for your phone and decide to route your way back to the Chalet using Google Maps that have been loaded on wifi at the restaurant, make sure the directions are for walking. Things get interesting if you don't.
We figured out that our directions were for driving right about the point the map showed us getting onto the highway. This was obviously a very, very bad idea, so we proceeded to use the (no-data) map to attempt to navigate. Phone maps are not the best, especially when it's hard to see street names and you're wandering around residential streets.
At one point, we were on a random trail parallel to the highway that may or may not have run through a couple backyards. This was about the point where my wonderful sense of direction decided that we were going in the wrong direction (we weren't).
Then Ryan said "we should do a monkey crawl!"
Yes, it was that random in person. I promise.
It took a little over an hour to get back to the Chalet and, once again, it was late. We chatted a bit and decided to get up early again and hit up the same crag for a morning of climbing before we had to head back to our respective homes.
The morning was beautiful ("Did you expect it
not to be beautiful?")
We climbed a different wall at the crag which had some harder routes. We all did some leads, and I decided to lead a 5c (5.9+ for my Yosemite Decimal System friends). I haven't done that much leading, and this route was solidly the hardest I've led. The rock turned out to be really smooth on the route I chose, which freaked me out a little. As a result, in all of the photos Ryan took of me on the lead I look absolutely terrified.
I think we all had some really good leads. It was so nice to climb on real rock again. There really is no substitute.
After Saturday's navigation adventures back to the Chalet, we had a bit more discussion before leaving the crag on Sunday to meet the airport shuttle.
Luckily this round, it went much smoother. Granted, we wandered around a random residential area (again), but it was much easier in daylight and we actually had some landmarks from the previous nights. That helped.
And of course, the random stonework on the buildings couldn't be resisted.
My excuse for the
very tardy account of last weekend's awesomeness is as follows: I made sure to finish all the assignments due this week before we left on Friday night. This resulted in a couple late nights, but was totally worth the stress and school-free weekend. However, on Monday and Tuesday, I (and all my classmates) were gifted a copious amount of work, naturally due within a week, and without a reduction in class hours.
Oh, and Ryan didn't get around to sharing his photos until, like, Thursday. So blame him.
On the school front, we have 2 weeks until finals (yay quarter system), and a massive amount of work to do between now and then. I've spent all weekend on school and haven't been able to shake the sinking sensation that I'm super behind and am never going to get caught up.
Eep.
Luckily, Ev is incredibly understanding of my chronic level of stress and has been making sure I get out and exercise to stave off insanity.
I am so lucky.
And tired.
Shocking.
