Around Chamonix - The rack railway and cable car Travel Video Guide

Around Chamonix - The rack railway and cable car Travel Itinerary

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There are a number of touristy but exhilarating excursions around Chamonix which you might want to experience - take your student card or hostelling card for reduced rates on some of the teleferiques . One is to take the rack railway from the Gare du Montenvers through the pine woods up to the vast glacier known as the Mer de Glace (trains every 20min: May, June & Sept 8.30am-5.30pm; July & Aug 8am-6pm; Oct to mid-Nov & mid-Dec to April 10am-4pm; 116F/?17.68 return), a favourite with Victorian travellers. Once you get there you have the option of taking a short cable-car ride down into the ice cave carved out of the Mer de Glace every year.

A second excursion is to ride the very expensive teleferique (summer daily from 7am; return 200F/?30.50) to the Aiguille du Midi (3842m), one of the longest cable-car ascents in the world, rising no less than 3000m above the valley floor in two impossibly steep stages. Penny-pinching by buying a ticket only as far as the Plan du Midi, which is used principally by climbers heading up to the routes on the Aiguilles du Chamonix, is a waste of money: go all the way or not at all. If you do go up, make the effort to go before 9am, as the summits tend to cloud over towards midday, and huge crowds may force you to wait for hours if you go up later. Take warm clothes, for even on a summer day it will be well below zero on the top. You need a steady head, too: the drop beneath the little bubble of steel and glass is appalling.

The Aiguille is a terrifyingly exposed granite pinnacle on which the teleferique dock and a restaurant are precariously balanced. The view is incredible. At your feet is the snowy plateau of the Col du Midi , with the glaciers of the Vallee Blanche and Geant crawling off left at their millennial pace. To the right a steep snowfield leads to the easy ridge route to the summit with its cap of ice (4807m). Away to the front, rank upon rank of snow-and-ice-capped monsters recede into the distance. Most impressive of all, closing the horizon to your left, from the east to south, is a mind-blowing cirque of needle-sharp peaks and precipitous cliffs : the Aiguille Verte, Triollet, the Jorasses, with the Matterhorn and Monte Rosa visible in the far

distance across a glorious landscape of rock, snow and cloud-filled valleys - the lethal testing ground of all truly crazed climbers.

A third - cheaper - alternative is to take the lift up to the Glacier des Bossons (daily: June 8.30am-6pm; July & Aug 8am-6pm; 50F/?7.62), where you can see the biggest precipice in Europe (a drop of 3500m), as well as the Alp's lowest ice face. A nature trail at the top, along with the spectacular views, makes for a good half-day outing.

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