Adventure of a Lifetime

It’s been 20 years since I’ve seen the Alps.  I don’t know why I let so much time pass, because they are just…

Well, you’ll understand why I feel the way I do about the Alps in a few minutes.

On the strong suggestion from some friends (thanks again, Jamie and Ralph!) we made sure that while we were in Annecy we did a road trip to Chamonix, site of the 1924 Winter Olympics and still a very popular French ski town.

Our plan was to get up early, pick up a rented car in Annecy, and make the hour-or-so drive to Chamonix.  Once there, we’d hop the cable car to the summit of Aiguille du Midi, take in the vistas, then head back down to Chamonix, have some lunch, kill a little time, and head back to Annecy.  Getting to Chamonix early was key, as we’d read that the lines for the cable car to the summit could be very long.

So we headed off in our little rented Toyota, excited about the day.

But nothing was going to go quite the way we planned.  Which, when traveling, is when the magic happens.

Unfortunately I’d become a bit overconfident in my French and I interpreted “Aiguille du Midi” to mean “cable car of noon”.  So I plugged “Aiguille du Midi” into Google Maps, which J affectionately likes to call my girlfriend, and off we went. The ride, while beautiful, was uneventful for the first hour.

The terrain was beautiful moving from Annecy deep into the Alps.  The mountains got higher and the air became colder as the kilometers flew by.  We watched, enthralled, as the road became the Route Blanche, a viaduct that wound through the fir-covered mountains hundreds of feet above the ground.

Eventually Google Maps told us to take a right, and we mounted a road that became a series of switchbacks that took us ever higher until soon we were at the entrance to a tunnel.

The tunnel looked like a pretty serious deal.  At this point we’re pretty accustomed to toll stations on the autoroutes of France (we all love to shout “Peage!” at the top of our lungs when we see the sign for an upcoming toll), and we’ve both been through the multifarious tunnels in New York and Boston more times than we care to count, but this was different.

First, the signs that were posted everywhere seemed to be stressing some serious shit.  There was quite a bit of “Danger” and “Safety” and “Thermographique”, the latter about which I was completely sans clue, but it sounded pretty fucking heavy.

Second, the signs were all French and Italian and said, “Declare yourself at toll”, which is language I’ve always associated with customs.  Girlfriend Google Maps hadn’t said anything about crossing the border to get to Chamonix, but I trusted her, so we went with it.

It soon became apparent that this was the Mont Blanc tunnel, which I assumed at the time passed under Mont Blanc (?!?) and came out in Chamonix.

I was wrong.  As we used to say in Boston, I was wicked, wicked wrong.

We waited for about 15 minutes in line for the toll, during which time we amused ourselves by watching what could only be described as an Italian hipster cleaning the dashboard of his sparkly Porsche 911 with a crisp new paintbrush.  Whatever young lady he charmed into the passenger seat later that day was really going to appreciate his spotless dashboard.

Our turn at the toll arrived and we paid the 63 Euros for a roundtrip ticket, thereby setting a new record for the Blew family.  Then we waited.  The toll gates were spacing out the vehicles significantly, so it was at least a minute or two before our turn came and we entered the tunnel.

By this time I understood from all the signs that tailgating was a no-no and we were expected to keep 150 meters between our car and the car in front of us, all the while going no slower than 50km/hr.  There were blue lights along the side of the tunnel which made it easier to gauge distance:  keep at least two sets of blue lights between you and the car in front of you and you’re golden, Pony Boy.

After several minutes of ignoring years of Boston-driver training (if you ride up the aahss of the cah in front of yah they’ll go fastah) I started to notice the signs that we were passing in the tunnel.

“Did you see that sign?” I asked Juliann.

“No.”  She was too busy making sure I was staying at least 151 meters away from the car in front of us.

“It looked like it said 10 kilometers to go.”

“What?”

I paused to let off the gas.  My Masshole driver training had kicked in and we had crept to within about 50 meters from the car in front of us.  We were sure there were a dozen crack French militia in a room somewhere nearby, watching us on monitors and preparing to scramble a response team if we got too close.

“I said I think this tunnel is at least another 6 miles long,” I said.

“No way.”

Just then we passed another sign.  “Yep,” I confirmed, “we’ve got another 6 miles in this tunnel.

At this point the boy became interested.  The tunnel was cool, yes, but at 4 he’s begun to get a grasp of how long a normal tunnel is (we’ve been through a few in France) and 6 miles sounded like a long one.

“Daddy, is this a long tunnel?” he asked.

We confirmed it for him, and I let off the gas yet again.  I had moved to within 30 meters of the car ahead of me, and I the alligator part of my brain that was raised near That Dirty Water was preparing to pass him and flip him the finger as we blew by.  The French militia team, previously on high alert, breathed a sigh of relief and sipped their cafe au laits.

The tunnel was indeed long.  The longest one we’ve ever been through.  Thus we hit the second milestone for the Blew family that day, but unfortunately not the last.

At long last we emerged from the tunnel into the bright morning sun, and a few things happened very quickly.  First, we noticed that all the road signs were in Italian.  I’ve become rather good at deciphering French, and even crafting very important phrases like “My wife and I need two glasses of wine immediately,” and “Could you please watch our child for 5 minutes before we lose our shit?” but despite the shared roots I could make head nor tail of the Italian road signs.

Next, we saw no sign of Chamonix.  Just highway and mountains.  We felt like Hans and company on board the Millennium Falcon joyously bouncing into the Alderaan System right after the unfortunate aforementioned planet was blown to smithereens.  A disturbance in the Force, indeed.  WTF.

Then, right as we were asking each other, “Where the hell is Chamonix?” our phones reported that our providers were no longer providing.

So in the space of 30 seconds we figured out that we were no longer in France, somehow we’d made a wrong turn, and our phones were now only useful for taking selfies of our extremely bewildered selves.

Fuckedy fuck.  This at 70km/hr and another tunnel coming up fast.  We had no choice, we entered it.  It was thankfully brief and we exited, once again with amazing views of the Alps, but at this point we didn’t care.  We were on the other side of Mont Blanc, which was fading fast in our rearview, in Italy, without a clue as to how to get to Chamonix.  We entered another tunnel.  We breathed, stayed calm, and entered emergency marriage mode.

Short sentences.

Be sure the other person knows you know it’s not their fault, even if it is their fault..

And be super, super polite.

We exited the tunnel and slid off the highway into a gravelly rest stop of sorts.  After some discussion we figured out that the car’s navigation system still worked, and we plugged in the town of Chamonix.  It seemed to give us what we wanted, but the time to the destination seemed wrong:  about an hour.

“I don’t get it,” I fretted, “I think Chamonix is just over there.  How can we be an hour away?”

J was patient, I calmed down, and after closer examination we figured out the problem:  there were no exits off of the highway we were on for another 30 miles, so we were forced to take a very, very long detour.

The longest detour the Blews have ever taken.  That’s right.  Record number three.  And one I’m not proud of.

It’s been over a week and Braeden still has not forgotten that Daddy made a wrong turn into “the long tunnel”.  He doesn’t know yet that the wrong turn cost us over $70US, but it doesn’t matter.  It’s funny when Daddy fucks up.  He can’t remember to put his dirty clothes in the hamper each morning, and he barely remembers to wash his hands after using the bathroom, but there’s no way in hell he can forget Daddy screwing up.

Once we figured out where we were, we relaxed and enjoyed our little detour through Italy.  It was mostly composed of 2-3 mile tunnels interspersed with a few hundred meters of open road, but very beautiful all the same.

When we finally were able to exit, I was undelighted to find that we had to pay another $11US toll for the privilege of doing so.  We turned around, headed back towards Mont Blanc, went through the tunnel once again, and finally found the town of Chamonix.

Once in Chamonix we figured out my error:  I had input “Aiguille du Midi” into Google Maps, and since “Aiguille du Midi” is actually a mountain (my 7th grade French teacher would be so disappointed in me) my dutiful girlfriend took us to just underneath the mountain.  She’s very literal that way.

Which is how we went on the most expensive, longest detour through the longest tunnel the Blew family has ever taken.  All before noon.

And my wife and son are never going to forget it.

Once we entered Chamonix we were quickly able to find the cable car for Aiguille du Midi, so we parked and made our way up to the ticket office.  All morning Mont Blanc had been swathed in clouds, but the forecast had stated that today was to be the best weather day before we left Annecy for good, so we crossed our fingers.

“Non.  No good,” said the ticket agent when we asked her about buying tickets to the summit.  Her eyes were kind.  “The weather is no good.”

She clicked her mouse a few times and turned her monitor towards us.  It was a webcam on the summit, and it showed that the view was decidedly unspectacular, just a soup of gray fog.

“Sorry,” she said.  We thanked her and turned away from the office, crestfallen.

At this point it was nearing noon, so we decided to find a restaurant and have some lunch.  We lucked out and found a fantastic little pub not far from the cable car called Monkey, and we grabbed a table near the TVs so the boy could take in some of the Olympic action.

I suggested that we could either admit defeat and explore the town, then leave, or we could return to Annecy, rent another car the next day, and try again.

J was more practical, and she had already fallen in love with Chamonix.

“We should just find a hotel and stay,” she said matter-of-factly.

I immediately resisted the idea.  We had no clean underwear.  No toothbrushes.  No toothpaste.  It would cost more money.  And WE HAD NO FLOSS, FOR CHRISSAKES.

By the end of the meal (it was a British pub serving amazing interpretations of burgers, burritos, and tacos – I had a cod taco and a meatball taco, both were amazing) I had accepted that my wife, as usual, had the better idea.

The lack of toothbrushes, clean underwear, or even floss were no match for the reality that we were probably not going to be in Chamonix again, and this was too beautiful a place to visit for just an afternoon.

It wasn’t long before Juliann found a hotel that interested her, so we thanked the folks at Monkey and left.  15 minutes later we were at Balcons du Savoy, a quaint ski-chalet-type hotel just off the main street.  Juliann booked a room, which turned out to be a cozy little efficiency apartment, complete with a kitchen and an incredible view of Mont Blanc.

After dumping our stuff we headed out to pick up some essentials (I couldn’t stop obsessing about toothpaste and a toothbrush, and of course we had to get some wine for that evening and breakfast for the morning) and we set out in search of dinner.

The reality of traveling with a 4-year-old is that, when it’s been a long day, you can’t just eat anywhere, even though sometimes we’d prefer to be adventurous and try a restaurant that specializes in local cuisine.  Or a place that is dripping with ambiance and candlelight, thronged with diners who look like they would pay thousands of euros not to hear “DADDY, I DON’T LIKE FRIES!” at 100 decibels.

So we had to be reasonable, and after looking at many an enticing spot we finally found ourselves back at Monkey where we had a very satisfying dinner, complete with some delicious beverages and topped off with Braeden’s version of Connect Four, which involves cramming checkers into the top of the rack as fast as you can while screaming with laughter.  It was a fun ending to a very, very long day.

We awoke the next morning to light cloud cover that blew off before we were out of bed, and we were able to enjoy a gorgeous view of Mont Blanc and the surrounding mountains from our bedroom.  The weather was good and things were looking up, all we had to do was get to the cable car base station before the crowds showed up and we were golden.

Braeden enjoyed a makeshift breakfast of blueberries and bananas with a glass of milk while Juliann and I packed up, and we were soon out the door.

The gods were with us.  We arrived at the base station and there was barely a line, Juliann breezed through and got us tickets ($168 euro roundtrip for the three of us) and we found a nearby boulangerie to grab breakfast for us and a snack for the boy while we waited for our 9:55 cable car.

There were actually two cable car rides involved on our trip to the summit:  one took us about halfway up, then we had to transfer and get on another to reach the peak of Aiguille du Midi.

If you’ve read this blog faithfully, you know my fear of heights is a little strange.  Jumping out of a plane is fine.  Bungy jumping from (what was at the time) the highest bungy jump in Europe is fine.  Watching my wife creep close to the edge of a 400-foot cliff is not.  Neither is standing in that stupid glass box in the Willis Tower in Chicago.

So I wasn’t sure how I was going to feel about going up to the summit in the cable car, but I knew it was going to be an adventure.

The first cable car was fine.  It was smooth going up the side of the mountain, which was beautifully forested and only a couple of hundred feet below.  There were a couple of tense moments (I wasn’t the only one, a good number of my fellow travelers were vocal about their discomfort) when the car ran up and over the guides on the towers, swaying crazily as momentum took it up and over, but otherwise it was peaceful and pretty to watch Chamonix slowly grow smaller below us.

The second cable was different.  The trees were gone by this time and the summit loomed high above us, the cable vanishing into the distance at an impossible height.  Below us the glacier that flowed down from the peak spread out in an unforgiving field of white and gray, and as we rose the chasm beneath our feet yawned ever wider.

Eventually we reached the top and as the car inched into its berth a few thousand feet above the glacier below, I breathed a sigh of relief.

We emerged from the car with our fellow passengers and were directed into a tunnel that looked for all the world like it was from the Hoth set from The Empire Strikes Back.  It was carved from stone and snow and ice and had cables running everywhere.  We soon stopped at a set of doors that led out onto the observation terraces, and we paused to take all the clothes out of our daypack and put them on.  Juliann, usually the coldest in the family, had a parka, a long-sleeved shirt, a couple of t-shirts, and jeans.  Braeden had sweatpants, a hoodie, and three t-shirts.  I of course had only t-shirts and shorts, being the most stubborn “light packer” in the family, so I threw a couple of t-shirts on and we stepped out onto the terrace.

It was cold, a little below freezing, but the view was what took our breath away.  The terrace on which we were standing was actually a breezeway between the cable car entrance and the main summit complex, but from this point we could see France, Italy, and Switzerland.  And, oh yes, Mont Blanc.

We spent a minute or two snapping some pics on the breezeway and I made sure that both Braeden and myself were far, far away from the fence on the edge, then we entered the complex.  We decided to first check out the observation terraces just above us, then head for the elevator which would take us to the very top.

The terraces were out in the open and very, very cold.  We spent less than 5 minutes out there, looking at everything around us, staring at Mont Blanc, and marveling at tiny Chamonix over two miles below.  Then we ducked inside, out of the wind, and headed for the elevator.

Once at the top we immediately headed for “Step into the Void”, a silly glass box that hangs out over the edge of the mountain.  The last time I stepped into one of those boxes in the Willis Tower I nearly became incontinent so I told Juliann that I would be happy to wait in line so she could go, but there was no way in hell I was letting my son get into that box, much less get into it myself.

The line was quite long but was for the most part in the sun and sheltered from the wind.  We waited, cracked jokes, and mostly stared out at the landscape below us.  From here we could see the tiny forms of brave hikers crossing the ridges and glaciers below, heading for Mont Blanc on what was sure to be a terrifying but rewarding adventure.  Braeden loved looking for the hikers, and whenever he saw another group he would yell and point.

He also didn’t tire of asking me the names of various peaks, which I didn’t know.  But he didn’t care, he just had a ball looking at all of the mountains, pointing, and asking questions.

We waited for over 30 minutes, during which time my common sense took a vacation and my fear abated, so I told Juliann that instead of sitting it out I was going to get in that goddamned box before I came down off the mountain.

The minutes crept by and we drew closer.  We finally stepped inside the doorway to the entrance area of “The Void” and we gratefully warmed ourselves.  And then I could see the box.  I watched as people from all over the world either jumped in without a care, stepped carefully in, or shook with terror as they fearfully put their foot out onto the glass floor.  I watched with fascination and horror, and then it was our turn.

The attendants cheerfully handed us slippers to put over our shoes so we wouldn’t scratch the floor, which was silly because we were about to plunge thousands of feet to our deaths.

I couldn’t look down.  J bounded out without a care, holding Braeden’s hand, and I grimaced and looked straight ahead as I stepped out.  Once I had both feet planted I turned, looking straight ahead the whole time, picked up our son, and shuffled next to my wife.  Then I plastered the biggest, most fake smile I could muster and one of the attendants took his time snapping nearly 40 goddamned pictures.  If I wasn’t so focused on trying to hear the bolts on the box giving way I would have strangled him.

Finally it was over and I gratefully stepped back into the mountain.  We kicked off our slippers, I muttered a “Merci Beaucoup” that I didn’t really mean, and we signed a guest book.  Juliann wrote something thoughtful and lovely, and I just wrote three words:

“Oh.  My.  GOD!”

After The Void we spent a couple of minutes admiring the view from the top, then we hopped the elevator back down to the terraces to walk around a bit.

One area was thronged with tourists and was little more than an ice tunnel that led out to a small snowy patch hemmed in by an uncomfortably low fence.  At one corner was a gate, so we carefully stepped over to it and read the sign.  “High Mountain,” it read, and just beyond was a path that led down the top of the ridge.

“No shit,” I thought.  The path was no more than two feet wide, and on either side the snow dropped away thousands of feet to the rocks below.

Every once in awhile the crowd of tourists would part and hikers would emerge, clad in serious cold-weather gear and crampons, bearing ice axes and ropes.  They would push aside the gate, step through, and slowly make their way down the ridge.  Unreal.

The previous day when Braeden saw the mountain, he asked, “Daddy, can I throw a snowball off the top?”

I grinned.  “Buddy, if we can, we will.”

Remembering his wish, I grabbed a small chunk of snow and led him slowly and carefully up to the fence, which was probably three feet high but really should have been 7 and reinforced with plexiglass and barbed wire, with a couple of overzealous German Shepherds prowling the perimeter for good measure.

I brought him as close as I dared, which was close enough for him to see straight down the slope of snow to the valley floor over 3,000 feet below.  His eyes were huge and his smile was wide.  I hugged him hard, probably too hard, but he didn’t complain.

My hand opened, revealing the snowball.  His smile grew wider as he understood.  He wrapped his hand around the snowball and raised his arm over his head, paused, and then let it fly.  It soared a hundred or so feet before hitting the snow, then gathered speed and rolled down the mountain until it was too small to see.

We looked at each other, grinned, and slowly backed away.

By this time we had been at the summit for a couple of hours, which was about 90 minutes longer than I thought we would last, so we stopped at the cafeteria (yep, they made room for a cafeteria up there) to have some lunch, and then we said goodbye to Aiguille du Midi and headed back down.

On the way down in the first cable car we noticed quite a few hikers walking around on the somewhat warmer mountainside, and we also saw a cafe, so we decided to take a little time, hop off, and see what we could see before taking the second and final cable car down to Chamonix.

We stepped out onto the mountainside, which was green and rocky and beautiful, and immediately felt much warmer.  There were a couple of trails that led away from the cable car station, so we stepped onto one and took a couple of pictures.  Then we decided to hike for a few minutes.

A few minutes turned into fifteen and fifteen into an hour, and we had an absolutely amazing time hiking the gorgeous terrain.  Braeden, who usually asks every other minute in the city for me to pick him up and carry him, tore off like a goat, clambering over rocks and hillocks, looking back at us and saying, “It’s steep over here, Mommy, watch out,” or “I tried going that way but the rocks moved.”  It was a wonderful little detour.

We tried finding Blue Lake but didn’t have any luck, so after awhile we returned to the cafe for some cold drinks, tired and happy.  Then we hopped back in the cable car, returned to Chamonix, and drove back to the real world in Annecy.

A couple of days later we packed up and left Annecy behind.  It and Chamonix are going to stay with us for quite awhile, and I’m glad we have the pictures, and now the story, to remind us of our time there.

Next time we’ll talk about our experiences in Aix-en-Provence, where we’ve been for a little over a week.  We hit the tourist trail, take some showstopping photos, and do a few things out of our (mostly my) comfort zone.  Check back soon and don’t miss it!

A bientot!