No sooner back from Paris than attentions turned to taking advantage of the snow and making the most of our final few days in Chamonix. Sadly, none of the ski areas in the valley are to open before we leave so we went to Verbier in Switzerland instead. This required hiring a car, renting some skis (we live on top of the shop and they gave us a ridiculous rate 🙂), buying some snow pants (we will always make good use of snow pants in Canada! ☃), and driving 1.5 hours through some deep snow and an ongoing blizzard. But the kids have now skied in the big mountains!
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| Owing to my chairlift phobia I reluctantly stayed on the ground, went for a hike, and met these charming folks. Check out Crystal's FB for rad shots of the slopes... |
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The Swiss village of Serryer
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| Hot chocolate with Toby in Verbier |
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Driving to Verbier was snowy
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We kept the car for Sunday, and Crystal and Toby headed down to St Gervais for his final hockey tournament. He really loves this sport. Felicity and I made some cookies to say goodbye to her class and caught the bus for a snowshoe in Tines. It was a fairytale scene out there.
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| She did it all herself, consulting only on quantities, which was fair enough given we had no measuring tools |
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Ginger cookies
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| Boucle des Tines |
We still had the rented snowshoes on Monday so time for one last adventure. On our first weekend here we went up to Montenvers on the train and walked to the Plan d'Aiguille hut. It was cheaper to buy a return ticket but we walked down, so we have had these one way, descent tickets ever since. However, the train shut down for November so we had a narrow window of opportunity on Monday this week. The only catch was that we had had a ton of snow but luckily we still had the rental snowshoes. Well, there was another catch: totally inappropriate footwear. Our goretex running shoes had been serving us quite well until (a) the weather got snowy, and (b) the goretex got holey. We were in for cold feet. Monday was a spectacular day. We've seen little of the sun since the snow started falling, but this was a cold, clear, still Monday morning, and on the shady side of the valley. The going was hard but we made it to the Buvette de Motette keen to make the final push to the warm sanctuary of the Montenvers restaurant and visitor centre.
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Lovely scenery on the way up
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| This is as far as we got, looking down towards the glacier |
Sadly it was not to be. We met a friendly guide who had zipped up to the Buvette to shovel some snow for his wife who ran the place. He said he wouldn't carry on, and certainly not without avalanche gear. The trail had not be trodden down at all and apparently there was a section where there was a risk of avalanche. Having spent the morning listening to the chopper crews blasting avalanches up and down the valley, we were not hard to convince. Disappointed, we trudged back down appreciating the now negative elevation gain and focused on hot drinks chez nous.
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| Easier on the way down |
Tuesday the kids were at school so it was a big packing and admin day with time for a quick run, just for old times' sake. Wednesday brought a family celebration brunch, the final hockey and figure skating practices, and a whole load more snow, just to rub in the fact that we are leaving days before the ski season starts! The town put on a great big parade and light show in honour of our final night in Chamonix. Or maybe that was just their turning on the Christmas lights event. Well it was nice anyway.
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| Even when running in the valley, it is just great to always have this dramatic scenery all around |
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| Packing: this is every item of clothing I brought for the last 4.5 months |
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