We we’re up by 9 to catch the train for a day trip to Chaminix, at the foot of Mont Blanc. This was a last minute addition to our itinerary based on a pamphlet we found at the hotel, and we weren’t quite sure what we would find, although it looked very promising. I ran to the store to get some bread and snacks for the train, and then we headed to the station.

It took three hours, with three train changes, to get there, with the mountains getting taller and taller the closer we got. It was raining on and off, and before long the mountains were lost in the mist of the clouds. The valleys, though, were cut with a number of large waterfalls.

When we arrived, we could not see the tops of any of the mountains around us, but in places we could just make out bits of snow and ice clinging to the sides. We went straight to a mountain cog train that took us up the side of the valley, and we slowly ascended into the clouds.

When we reached the top, there was a very light rain falling. After warming up for a bit, we took a small cable car down the inside valley of the mountain, and then from there down a long set of metal and concrete stairs set across the bare face of what was essentially a cliff.

At the bottom was a glacier – a real live glacier that came snaking out of the mountains like a frozen river covered with gray rocks and then ended in a pile of rubble just below us.  Water was draining down our side of the valley, and the slope on the other side was cut with several sizable waterfalls that descended into the glacier and then disappeared beneath it.

At the bottom, a cave had been cut out of the glacier. Visible next to the current cave were two or three earlier caves that had been carved several weeks or months ago, but that had moved downstream as the glacier moved down the valley.

A gangway led into our cave, and inside was a tunnel carved into the ice that you could walk through. The ice was backlit with colored lights and was quite clear, creating a striking crystal effect. If you looked close you could see where rocks and gravel had been trapped frozen inside the ice. Water was dripping almost everywhere, and in some places it was almost pouring through the ceiling and then disappearing into the floor. Here and there they had carved whimsical rooms out of the ice.

Amber decided that she had to go to the bathroom just as we reached the bottom, so she went ahead with Phyllis while I walked with Kaitlin and took pictures. We then climbed the several hundred stairs up and rode the cable car back to the top.  There, I convinced Phyllis and the girls to go back down again so that I could get some proper pictures of Amber and Phyllis, so we went through a second time.  By this time the clouds had lifted and sun was peeking through in places, lighting up the mountains on the far side.

Afterwards, we rested a bit and had hot chocolate, and then took the two hour hike down the mountain. This turned out to be a great hike, with spots of sun and no rain, amazing views across the valley and down to Chaminix below our feet, and the rocky trail winding through Aspen and fir trees. Flowers and moss were everywhere.

We cut things close at the bottom, catching the last train back to Aix Les Bains with just 15 minutes to spare. As we rode out, we could see the end of another glacier hanging halfway down the side of the valley, a pile of white icy shards with water running from the bottom.

The cloud layer had obscured the actual tops of the higher peaks above us all day, but it cleared enough as the train pulled away for us to catch sight of the snow covered peaks high above the valley. They seemed impossibly tall, and we deduced that we must be looking at Mont Blanc. We were all saying “wow, I can’t believe how tall that mountain is” when the clouds opened a bit more and we suddenly realized that we were only looking at the shoulder of the peak, with the actual top of the mountain poking through above a ring of clouds around it, and then we were really blown away. The peak seemed almost straight up, and up, and up.

We ate in the train home, and I played cards with Amber. We were back at the room shortly before midnight.