Historical post written up during the coronavirus lockdown for posterity

In 2014 we decided to head to the Alps. The first trip of the trio of European mountain destinations, later including the Pyrenees and Dolomites. In the era of cheap flights, we flew to Geneva, toured from the airport to the city center on foot stopping to admire the fountain, then found a hitchhiking spot. Our first choice was a poor one, just before the border to France. When we were finally rescued the woman told us people don’t like to take people over the border.

Nonetheless, she took us about halfway to Chamonix, and a young chap sorted us out for the rest of the journey. The plan was sort of to start on the Tour du Mont Blanc and see where we got to.

After a night camp in a forest, we discovered that we were on the route of one of the UTMB races, and through the night teams had been passing us. The morning was spent reversing their route and making our way around to the Col du Tricot which would be our first novelty campsite. 2014 was the year of the fisheye gopro…

Camping high is impractical; there is no water and it’s normally windy. But it’s undeniably cool, so we pitched right on the Col.

Day 2 was a long descent to Les Contamines for resupply, then straight on up the Gorge. There’s an official ‘bivouac’ spot outside the refuge. They even let you use the bogs.

We looped around the mountains at the top of the valley the next day, got attacked by a goat (luckily I hit it pretty hard with a stick after Jordan just tickled it), climbed a slope not dissimilar to Tryfan, and followed the power cables at 2k+ m. We made it a loop and camped at the same spot the night before; mildly frustrating given we carried everything for the whole day.

Next up was another resupply. Turns out the buses weren’t running in September so it was a long stroll back to town. Then town was closed for the afternoon siesta and we probably had an afternoon doze in the sun. Seeing the ski area in summer was unusual, what seems like a small playground in winter takes vastly longer to cover on foot. We headed up Mont Joly which included an epic walk along the ridge in swirling clouds. Mont Joly was the second of the impractical cool campsites.

The clouds became an inversion at sunset and I like to imagine we were the only people in the valley with such an excellent view of Mont Blanc.

The morning dawned crisp and blue (read: gonna be a hot day). Some bloke arrived at the summit before we’d taken the tent down, and it turned out he often walked up and paraglided down because he had dodgy knees. Maybe one for the future.

We were wandering tramps at this point, which made a visit to Megeve all the more exciting. Megeve is popular for the super-rich, the kind of place window shopping runs 5 figures. It’s also got an excellent stream to wash in if you’re poor. Unable/unwilling to stay in Megeve we trudged up the next mountain for another picturesque pitch.

The go-pro shows that the original 2010 vintage rarely cleaned aluminum pan was still in action. Not sure where that trusty workhorse has gotten to these days.