On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
BigJimSlade
Last summer my wife and I flew in/out of Geneva to go hiking in the alps :-) From the airport we caught a bus to Chamonix. On my trip to Europe in 1989, I made a side trip the Chamonix for a couple days and remember very little of it. It snowed big, fat, wet snowflakes. It was gray the whole time. Couldn’t see the mountains. I know I did a couple hour day hike, but I have no idea where exactly at this point. So it was going to be fun to go back!
Then we headed off to Switzerland for a few days in Grindelwald, hiking around, plus a side trip to Lauterbrunnen, before spending a night in Geneva before the flight back.
OK, let’s check out Chamonix, home of the fantastical, gondola-serviced Aiguille du Midi, and Mt. Blanc.
When we returned home, I checked my photos to see what I had of Chamonix and it turns out I had a picture of the hotel we stayed at on this trip – Le Croix Blanche! (tr: The White Cross) I made these 2 pictures into one with the picture from 1989 on the left, and from last summer on the right. Embiggen (for those not in the know, this is old internet slang for “click here to see this image bigger).
A view from the town, Mt. Blanc is lost in the clouds, and Aiguille du Midi is off-picture to the left. Embiggen.
Going up to Aiguille du Midi, about halfway up at Plan de l’Aiguille, you change gondolas, and this is your view heading towards the top. Embiggen
Once up there, there are a couple buildings to walk around and see exhibits in, tunnels connecting them, a couple platforms and walkways. And the views are stunning if the weather cooperates. The Chamonix valley is off the the left and we are looking north-east, somewhere in the distance is Switzerland. Along the near ridge in the snow, at the bottom and right, you can see mountaineers starting off on some adventure. I assume most, but not all, are trying to get to the top of Mt. Blanc, which is behind us off to the right. Embiggen
Mt. Blanc! is peeking out at the top, center-left. Embiggen
A closer look at the path mountaineers are taking. Embiggen
An even closer look. Look closely and you can see people on the “trail.” Embiggen
Looking back the other way again, I was fascinated by these hanging cliffs of snow. I kept imaging having to walk under one. Embiggen
More snow and rock shapes, b&w style. Embiggen
p.a.
Nice! Thanks!
eclare
I can’t fathom looking at Mt. Blanc, say in photo number five, and thinking: yes, I must climb that.
Stunning views.
Mai Naem mobile
Very pretty. Somehow these mountains look scarier and more rugged than the pics I’ve seen of the ski slopes of American mountains. Also, I can feel my feet getting cold and wet just looking at the pics brrrr.
JPL
Beautiful.
Mokum
@eclare: foolishly, i climbed 40 years ago Mt. Blanc, pulled up the mountain by some guys who had the ambition of becoming the most famous Dutch mountaineers. Which was funny because the highest elevation in the Netherlands is something like 700ft. So when they went to Switzerland they suffered from mountain sickness for a couple of weeks, and then usually it started raining, and ambitious climbing was impossible. But extremely beautiful views on the Mont Blanc, highly recommended.
raven
The Alps were a simple people, the lived on a diet and old shoes. The lord Alps them who Alps themselves!
Dorothy A. Winsor
I admire both the mountains and the vigor it takes to decide to climb them.
bjacques
Heh. The first I ever heard of Grindelwald was 40 years ago, on a few episodes of the daytime soap All My Children (college, lunch break, if you must know). Palmer Courtlandt seemed to drop it into every other conversation. I had no idea where it was but suspected a paid promotion.
pb3550
Fabulous pictures; & embiggen made it possible for me to enjoy them much more.
Wag
Mint Blanc is stunning. Thanks for sharing. Can’t wait to see your photos of the Eiger?!?
eclare
@Mokum: What a story!
eclare
@raven: NotMax, that you?
oatler
We never seem to get gondola service in the US.
mali muso
Gorgeous! I spent a year after finishing college (sort of a gap year) living in a commune in the Alps just a few mountains away. I never got tired of looking at the views – they change almost by the minute but are also so very timeless and permanent.
MelissaM
Lovely, snowy pictures!
BigJim, your Dolomite tales spurred us on. We’ve the tickets now to go there in August, which wouldn’t be my chosen time, but it coincides with meeting up with my BIL who will be in Switzerland at the time. We’ve got 2 weeks to do some hiking and touring around Northern Italy. I want to see Otzi in Bolzano (plus Bolzano is the home town of the dude who wrote the manuscript my husband did his dissertation on,) maybe Cremona, home of Stradivarius and still a strong violin town (husband plays violin,) etc.
Thanks for providing the inspiration. Blessedly, Mont Blanc I can enjoy from pictures with little desire to be there in person.
J R in WV
My paternal grandfather’s parents came here from Switzerland in the 1890s and settled in dairy country in NE Ohio. I visited cousins up there with my dad off and on. My granddad only spoke Switzerdeutch (Swiss german) until he went to grade school, and visited Switzerland to see his cousins several times.
I’m sure I have many Swiss cousins over there, but no idea of how to find them today. Granddad took his whole family to Europe, 4 kids, my grandparents, and a big gray Olds with luggage strapped outside, for several months in 1938, so just missed the start of WW II by a couple of weeks. The passport was fascinating, stamps from many countries which no longer exist.
ETA: No urge to hike in snow at 12,000 feet whatsoever. None! Will look at mtns from lower elevations now that I’m old and feeble!
mvr
I have a friend who always wants to go up when we hike, whereas I always want to go toward water. He volunteered for Seattle Mountain Rescue for a number of years and does real climbing. I like looking at these peaks and ridges from below or across (Thanks BigJimSlade for letting us do that here!), whereas he wants to get up there and look around. I do get the attraction of challenges, but I also want to survive to a ripe old age.
munira
Beautiful photos. And it’s La Croix Blanche ( I do technical writing in French so I can’t help but be a French pedant since I get paid for it.)
cope
Beautiful pictures of spectacular places, thanks.
When I was young and doing serious climbing, the Alps were always a dream destination. In the summer of ’71, I did a six week field geology course in Britain and at the end, we had two weeks to ourselves before returning to the states. I had my heavy canvas climbing bag full of hardware, a brand new Perlon rope and my trusty ash-shaft ice axe, fully intending to head to Chamonix for those two weeks but by the end of the course, I was too poor to get across to France. I “settled” for spending those two weeks climbing in North Wales which was itself spectacular but I always regretted not making it to Chamonix.
Thanks again for helping fill in that gap.
Doug
@Wag: zomg the north face of the Eiger is a monster. Gives me a shiver just remembering the time I saw it in person. I had done some climbing around Munich and in Slovenia, but I was plenty happy just looking up at the Eiger from nearish meadows. Yowza.
StringOnAStick
@MelissaM: Since you’ll be in the area, Corvara is very nice, much less touristy than Cortina. Stunning views and an interesting area; look up what you can about the Laden language and people; Corvara is the centre of that region.
The Alps are such huge mountains, more on the scale of the Himalaya than anything in the US. Such incredible peaks, thanks for the reminder!
StringOnAStick
@Doug: AGW is making the Eiger too dangerous to climb in the summer because the rock is so rotten, it needs to be frozen for a safer attempt, so it’s pretty much a winter climb now. I was/am comfortable rock climbing and doing big peaks in the Rockies, but I had the same reaction as you looking at the Eiger: no thanks. Hiking in the Alps and seeing these huge routes, then realizing that European mountaineers were doing them in the 1800’s with rudimentary gear and no high tech clothing or equipment gave me huge respect for what they did.
tokyokie
I finished high school at a boarding school in Switzerland, and from the balcony of my dorm room, I had a wonderful view of les Dents du Midi, so your pictures bring back memories, even if I’ve never gotten closer to them than the Rhône Valley floor.
way2blue
What a lovely part of the French Alps. Thanks for sharing.
My daughter spent a ‘year abroad’ at Univ of Grenoble and used to snow board there. She noted how fast the French ski—to which I responded: ‘Ack! You don’t need to keep up… ‘ She also took some photos from an annual event when the cows, sheep, geese… parade through Chamonix all gussied up.
BigJimSlade
@MelissaM: Glad to be a good influence :-)
BigJimSlade
@munira: Lol, I didn’t even think about it – I just typed the first French definite article that came to mind, but “blanche” should’ve tipped me off – doh!
BigJimSlade
Thanks for everybody’s kind words, and stories!
BigJimSlade
@Doug:
@StringOnAStick:
We didn’t climb the Eiger, but if you want to watch some people do it (not the hardest way, just whatever works), we always like the dry delivery of Danny on this channel:
youtube.com/watch?v=qhswsXxDwKs
BigJimSlade
@Wag: Wait for the moonrise Eiger shot in a few days (or whenever they’re scheduled to go) :-)
cope
@BigJimSlade: Thanks for the video link, that was vicarious fun for me. I was reminded of Krakauer’s comment about the Eiger that “I didn’t want to climb the Eiger, I wanted to HAVE climbed the Eiger”.
BigJimSlade
@cope: Glad you liked it!
Mike G
Beautiful spot. Unfortunately the weather and visibility did not cooperate on my last trip to both Chamonix and Lauterbrunnen/Jungfrau. But I happened to be staying in Wengen when they got their first snowfall of the season a few hundred feet up the mountain, which was nice.
Tehanu
Lovely mountain pix. What amazes me is, how the heck did they build those gondolas?