9. Chamonix, France

Featuring: incredible mountain views

Day 26. Tuesday 6/16/26

Transit Day? I have no notes and not enough pictures to piece it together. Yeah, I’m pretty sure we traveled in the morning from Annecy to Chamonix (both France) via train) 

Hike in Saint-Gervais-les-Bains up in the mountains. (Think “Heidi” or “Sound of Music”. Green grass and wild flowers and white mountain tops as far as the eye can see. Rode the cog car just for fun up and down the mountain. Slow, pretty, and climbing some serious incline/decline. “Why are we going so slow/carefully?” [Looks down and around the corner] “Ah, because yikes.”

Check out this photo I tried to take to show the level of incline vs the parallel earth/mountains. 

Had dinner at Rose Point, one of the most picturesque places we encountered so far. All dark wood interior. Felt very late 1800s romance and money in the mountains. Due to some confusion with the servers and them comping some of our drinks to due to errors, there were a comical amount of beverage glasses on the table. You could view the mountains through the top windows! Swag bar. This place was not what most of the places in town looked like. It was cool. 

We stayed at “Hotel Le Chamonix”, which was everything you’d expect from a traditional skiiers hotel: extremely modest/simple, 11 rooms, old red carpet everywhere, absolute bear minimun everything and made of wood, tiny balcony on every room, more bar seating outside than actual hotel space. Cheap drinks and friendly staff. Our place seemd like the only “cheap/casual/budget” spot around and like all the locals pre/post hikes were hanging out at the terrace bar all the time. Felt like we were in the middle of the cultural center. 

Also noticed that it seemed like every hiker went into the tiny chapel church before their ascent. I would too if I were carrying all that rope to the top of the mountain.

Day 27. Wednesday  6/17/26

Took two lifts, Planpraz Gondola from the center of Chamonix to Planpraz (2,000m), then transferred to the Brévent cable car (2,525m). These lifts are in gondolas. When they are close to the tree/line ground, they don’t make me nervous when we ascend. When they are like hanging a string of yarn in the corner of your living room and attaching it to the other end of the room, and they are suspending a little army man on the string — and you’re the army man— this makes my knees weak a bit. Regardless, I always stand right by the window with my face pressed against the glass to remind myself the thrill of being alive. 

Below, we went up the lift on the right. Notice how the size of the gondola disappears over the mountain. Then we rode across the cavernous expanse to the top of the other mountain. Some call it a thrill ride -- others call it public transportation.

A famous statue in the city center points to the famed Aiguille du Midi Mountain that we would be visiting the next day. We had no idea what a treat we were in for. 

Composing out on the terrace bar. The music kept getting better. 

Day 28. Thursday 6/18/26

Visit Aiguille du Midi 

This was a surreal, beautiful, and “oofda, we are high up in a way I’ve never been before and my body/mind don’t know how to respond” day. 

We went from 3,396 feet above sea level to…. wait for it… 12,602 feet above sea level. How many lifts do you think that would take? TWO. And the second one went straight up. And the distance between the ground and the string holding up the gondola (okay, multilayer-wrapped steel cable) kept growing and growing. The ride itself was a thrill ride — 100 people crammed into half a shipping container, and sent flying up the side of the mountain. Note, all of these views are all from the same mountaintop in different directions.

The complex is like an industrial space mountain lair castle built into the rock/ice. It felt like I was in a James Bond movie, but without the security of knowing if I was the good guy or bad guy who was going to get out okay. The temperature was cold (30s-40s Fahrenheit) up there. We were confused/surprised to have multiple tunnels/structures made of ice (melting) that we walked through and under up there. The complex was like a child’s playground in that all the different “floors/levels” bled together — scaling up and down to get around the complex, which added to the mystery and magic of the space, feeling otherworldly. 

Key sights: 

• Walking around outside on the open skydeck with brisk, cold, and loud wind. 

• Uneven surfaces (concrete, rock, see straight down through the grated staircase) throughout. 

• looking for miles in every direction as far as the eye can see. I think visibility was around 10 miles. 

• Seeing crazy people: paragliders running off the side of the mountain. Seeing hikers hiking straight down/up as well as across the abyss of snow/ice that leads to who knows where. 

• Seeing snow/ice upon more snow/ice that just keeps going

• A helicopter delivering supplies? 

• Armed servicemen being honored. They sang (well) a song in unison at that meaningful to experience, literally on top of the world. 

• Exhibits discussing how climbers (there are like 20 different kinds of climbing) historically/currently climb and navigate the mountain. People are both intuitive and nuts. 

The gondola down to the midstation was less terrifying, but it still makes your knees weak. I guess moving towards the ground is easier for me to process than going up and feeling like we’re going to pop out at the top of Willy Wonka’s Glass Elevator (at 12,502 feet). At the midpoint stop, we decided to take an “easy” hike down to a cafe (hut) on the site of the mountain. This was a pretty rocky (not lush green) hike, which was kind of barren and sparse, which was cool and felt different being exposed to the sun and wind and seeing all around. The hike took us double the posted time (and we weren’t exactly moving slowly), so we decided not to impromptu keep hiking down to the next base for a scheduled 2.5-hour hike that could be 5+ hours. 

Here's the non-zoomed-in view from Chamonix before the two lifts. Like, zoom into this. This is bananas far up.

Below is the mega zoomed-in photo (tripadvisor). As you can see, it looks like a villain's lair. From my childhood, this was the compound in "Agent Cody Banks".

For a respite to catch our breath and hydrate, we visited the hotel watering hole that seems to play popular music and played more cards (Whist). Dad even played a few hands! 

Here’s the view from our room of Mount Blanc. It’s as pretty as it looks and so much more. I’m thinking about switching professions to a job where I can hike for a few hours then sample local beverages and play cards. Still looking for that application. 

Day 29. Friday 6/19/26

 Time to visit a glacier. 

I visited my first up-close (and inside it) glacier! The glacier, Mer de Glace, is 11km long from the Combe Maudite. It is the longest glacier in France and the third longest in the Alps. It generates energy (water under the ice) that supplies 50,000 people with electricity. Its crevasse at most is 115ft (12 floors). 

We were able to go inside this glacier, thanks to the work of the ‘grottus’, the craftsmen who dig the ice. The tunnel is created with a drill while shapes and details are carved manually with ice picks and shovels. The digging of the ice cave takes four months every year and has been done by the Caret family since 1940.” (From the info plaques). 

Other tidbits: 

• With global warming, the thickness of the ice beneath Montenvers is decreasing by 6-8 meters per year. 

• 2 billion people live off glacier water.

• In 5 years, this glacier will no longer be at Montenvers

• Glaciers have shrunk by almost 50% since 1850. 

• Mer de Glace is only moving 15 meters a year. The glacier Giant Seracs (2,800m higher) is still moving fast by more than a meter a day! 

• Below is a tragic video showing where the glacier was in 2018 and where it is now. Yeah, it’s all the way down there, covered by a giant tarp to keep it from melting. All these pictures are from in there. 

• It was cool. Like, really cool. (Like freezing). 

We lunched at the Grand Hotel du Montenvers — where Franz Liszt (pianist, composer) and the Shelley family (“Frankenstein”, etc.) vacationed. As well as Goethe and Lord Byron. Oh, and Victor Hugo and Charles Dickens,  I took a picture from the bathroom where Liszt once regularly peed (and all the others). Historic. 

Pictures with Locomotive No. 8 and me!  (1927 first operated; 1954 used for maintenance only because the rail was now electrified; 1979 last used). I really like trains. These are super special to me because I grew up playing with the LGB train sets. They are based on trains all over the world, but I grew up specifically with the Alpine and Alpine adjacent locomotives and railcars. So this feels just like my childhood joys are now life-size because they are identical. 

Dad explains how the cog rail and brakes work. 

Then we trained in Geneva, Switzerland, solely for the purpose of having an international airport. We went to an Indian Restaurant (because it looked amazing and was close by, and I love Indian food and it was late). Incredibly meal. Server overshared. Not like food portions, but like about his life.