T.M.B

Mont Blanc 1997

Summary

I vacationed in the Alps for 13 days this summer leaving August 9 and returning August 21. As always, it was an excellent trip. The easiest way to describe it is to say we had great weather, great food, great hiking, great scenery and a great group of people to spend 2 weeks with.

Itinerary

I flew from Indianapolis to Cincinnati to JFK to Geneva, Switzerland. We were met at the airport in Geneva and were driven to Chamonix, France. We hiked from there around Mont Blanc, in the process going through Italy and Switzerland, ending up back in Chamonix. One estimate is that we covered 100 miles in the 10 days of hiking. We then reversed the direction of travel to return home, drive to Geneva and fly to JFK, Cincinnati, Indianapolis.

Weather

Weather is always an important topic when you're hiking. We had excellent weather on this trip. There was only one day when we needed to get our rain gear out and then only for 30 or 40 minutes.

However there was one day when the weather almost made headlines. We had arrived at the mountain hotel where we would be spending the night. After we arrived it started to rain. Then it started to rain harder and harder and just kept on raining. A couple of us were in the bar and saw water pouring down the trail we'd hiked to the hotel. I then saw a small concrete retaining wall go down from the force of the water. Then a number of very frightened and crying kids came into the hotel. One of the kids was mud almost from head to foot. I then saw water come pouring out of a house/small cheese factory less than 100 feet from the hotel.

It turns out that a river had jumped its banks and created a flash flood which had passed on both sides of the hotel. One of our group saw it from his room's window. He described it as a wall of water, mud and rocks. It was a miracle that no one was seriously injured. A few cuts, bruises and a sprained knee were the worst of it. And we learned at the end of the trip that the area had already almost fully recovered by then.

Format of Trip

There were 12 clients on the trip and 3 guides. Two of the guides would be with us on the trail each day and the other would be driving the van with our luggage to where we would be staying each night. We only had to carry day packs with our rain gear, water bottle and sack lunch.

Each night we would be in a hotel or refuge, no camping. Several hotels had rooms with standard bathrooms. However some times there was just a wash basin in the room and the shower and toilet were down the hall. Once the room didn't even have a sink.

The one night in a refuge was even more rustic but still fun. Basically we were in a dorm or barracks with 22 bunks. The floor below had about 16 or 18 bunks. For these two floors there were 2 showers, 4 sinks and 3 toilets. But the food was great, the foosball was fun, and the people who ran it were really nice. It was a wonderful welcome to Italy.

Although the schedule varied depending on a number of factors, typically we would get up around 7 and have breakfast around 7:30. Breakfast would usually be continental, with croissants and French bread. However knowing American tastes, there was also orange juice and cereal. After breakfast the guides would have fixings set out and we would make our lunch, usually a sandwich or two, trail mix, fruit and candy bars. We would usually be on the trail about 9 or 9:30. Some days this included a transfer in the van to the trail head. The lunch stop would usually be around 12:30 and was usually about an hour. Then back on the trail until 3:30 or 4. Usually we ended right at the hotel. Dinner was generally at 7:30.

Fun People, Fun Times

One of the people on our trip is a professional photographer who was hired by Mountain Travel-Sobek. They have lots of pictures of scenery but they wanted more people pictures for their Web site and catalog. I'm certainly looking forward to the next catalog or two to see how many pictures from our trip are in them.

One of the people is an assistant camera for the TV show "Walker, Texas Ranger" starring Chuck Norris. The show was on hiatus at the time.

Several people had run marathons. In fact several times after getting in from the day's hiking, people would go out running. Once two of them managed to get lost and got a much longer workout than expected. We were within 25 minutes of calling out a helicopter to look for them.

One day at dinner, one person didn't want her dessert and passed it on. However the server noticed this and was kidding her about it. On his next trip he brought her 2 desserts. Then every 5 minutes for the next half hour a different dessert would show up. The rest of us certainly had fun sampling them all.

One day on the trail someone started singing, mostly rock from the 60's. After a while, one of the leaders got tired of it and started running up the trail to get away from it. What she hadn't counted on was an entire group of runners and joggers. The entire group ended running after her up the trail for a couple hundred yards or so.

One day someone played a tradition hiking joke on our leader. She slipped a rock into his pack. Two days later he got her back with not one but two rocks. She said she'd been watching her pack carefully the whole time and he still managed to slip them in. She'd noticed something sticking her in the back that day but she through her camera had just shifted in her pack. You had to be there to appreciate how hilarious it was when she went into her pack to get her lunch and found the rocks.

Trip Title

"T.M.B" comes from trail markers that we were following a good deal of the time. It stands for "Tour du Mont Blanc" and is a classic hike in Europe. Of course the English translation is "Tour of Mont Blanc."