Tag: glaciers
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Tour du Mont Blanc: Time to return to this amazing trail
It was “ciao” to Courmayeur, Italy today after a day of rest in the Alps resort city. The Tour du Mont Blanc has been more than challenging for us, so we needed the break. Walking into a new country was a new experience on Saturday. We heard “buon giorno” more often than “bonjour” almost…
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Tour du Mont Blanc: Spirits Lifted
We awoke Sunday morning (day 5) to more clear blue skies, and after a 6:30 am breakfast packed our things and started our trek. The hike down from Refugio Elisabetta eventually leveled out onto a wide pathway of relatively easy walking…a welcome relief to the relentless ups and downs of the…
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Tour du Mont Blanc: After struggle, the mountain rewards
From my bottom bunk looking out a small window in a wood-paneled room, I see a glacier and Alpine peaks high above. Our home for tonight, the Elizabetta hut in Italy, is at about 7,500 feet, two miles from the Italy-France border. The only way we could get to this place, as remote as…
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Tour du Mont Blanc: Our challenge begins
We were strongly advised to begin our trek with two gondola rides from Chamonix, taking us more than 5,000 feet up above spectacular terrain to Le Brevant, more than 8,000 feet high. Clouds blocked our view across the valley to Mont Blanc and made visibility poor for most of the day. So, after ascending…
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The way to Chamonix: Trains and costly surprises
Naïveté, bad luck and good fortune all had parts in our eventful journey from sunny Strasbourg to rainy Chamonix in the French Alps on Monday. Three trains were to take us on the nine-hour trip, but a bus and a very expensive taxi ride saved the day in the end. The second train ride,…
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