Shenanigans in Chamonix
Something about the mountains made us want to stay. So we ditched the plan and stayed an extra night. It felt like Stan needed some quality walking time so we decided to find a forest. That shouldn’t pose any major problems now, should it?
All of the major lifts are closed in Chamonix at this time of year. I wasn’t sorry though as, in theory, it made our day out easier. In theory, that is! A walk to La Cascade du Dard seemed to offer a good option. Putting the destination into google maps confirmed it was only a ten minute drive. So imagine my horror when we appeared to be entering the Mont Blanc tunnel. A swift turn into the lorry park area to the right of the entrance seemed to offer a thinking spot. How would we get out of this? We didn’t want to spend an extra hour going all the way through the Mont Blanc tunnel and back.
I hastily entered the office building to the right and a really nice guy helped us out. He told us all we need to do was to drive across the traffic. ‘Drive across the traffic, you say!’ ‘Across all that traffic, with lorries and cars and everything’. ‘Are you sure?’ ‘Will I die?’ He smiled, said no and went away. OK, so I gotta do this. Yeah, this wasn’t feeling great. But, lo and behold, from nowhere the guy appeared - he chivalrously stopped the traffic and moved traffic cones so we could safely pass. PHEW!
So, finally, we were in a position to discover La Cascade du Dard. Oh how I smiled as I smoothly turned left off the road at the correct turning. We managed to catch the hour long window of decent weather to see the waterfall in all its glory. It gave me a chance to use the long exposure feature when photographing with an iphone to create the beautiful shot of the flowing water - it’s really worth learning how to do. Check out our social media for a video of the walk - it says it better than words can!
Walk complete, rain pouring, we decided to head into Chamonix. We’re staying in Les Houches a small satellite village about ten minutes from central Chamonix. It’s very quiet at this time of year so it was nice to be amongst people for a change.
Chamonix was about 50% open for business I’d say. I’ve never been before and it lived up to its reputation as a high end ski resort. A chance for window shopping only for us and a fabulous lunch at Chez Constant. Every day I holiday with Stan, convinces me he is the perfect companion. With his raincoat on he got lots of attention from the cosmopolitan visitors to Chamonix. And, for his part, he couldn’t fault the food at Chez Constant. He’s definitely partial to a bit of tartiflette!
In hindsight, I think Stan may have got a bit carried away with his popularity. Chamonix hosts two famous statues depicting the mountaineers who scaled it. And there’s a story behind them. In 1786 two local men scaled Mont Blanc, they were named Dr Michael Gabriel Paccard, a Chamonix doctor and the somewhat exotic sounding Jacques Balmat, a hunter and crystal collector! The first statue shows two men facing the mountain, an arm outstretched. You’d be forgiven for believing the pair of them were the original duo that scaled the peak. But, no, Balmat is depicted accompanied by his ‘financier’ Saussure who had not even been part of the expedition. Fortunately Stan, being of a high moral calibre and thoroughly decent chap, was drawn to the second. He took the chance to be photographed next to Paccard. Paccard’s statue was added 200 years later than the original. A symptom of the incredible story-telling (i.e. lies) behind Balmat and Saussure’’s account of the climb.
And the moral of the story is, look out for exotic sounding men they aren’t always what they are cracked up to be!
Thanks to Lenscaper for the account of the story of the Chamonix statues
Seriously, you want me to drive across that!
Did I really take this?
Stan taking his, not so rightful, place next to Paccard
