Chamonix Activity Report: 16th October 2008
The days toward winter are counting down - it's raining in town at the moment, snowing to 2100m (just below Planpraz, where the cranes are still building the new top station). Most of the snow from last week's early-season dump to 1000m has melted, leaving climbing rock dry and biking trails thick and consolidated. I had a great ride up to Lavancher on the Petit Balcon Nord the other day - and was delighted to find a brilliant new bike track that I didn't know about before. Following the classic 'red route' up from Lavancher toward Argentière, take a left when you arrive at the bench. It's signposted La Joux and kicks off with a stinker of a right switchback, opening out and getting fast, smooth and flowy before you hit the main road. You lose about 150m of vertical in about 1 minute...awesome.
It was with surprise, therefore, that I missed certain weird things about Chamonix while I was away on a trip to the South last weekend. Sure, the Riviera's very nice, but it's just not Cham. My morning wasn't the same without a chocolate & almond croissant from Chez Richard (opposite the post office, 1€20). The coffee at the hotel didn't come close to the coffee they do at Mojo's. The fruit salad wasn't a patch on the quasi-English breakfast you get at Elevation (next to the station) - OK, so they never get it spot on, but it's as close to a genuine fry up as you'll get in this country. The Riviera cocktails left me thirsty and unfulfilled, daydreaming of Chambre Neuf's Gorilla Milk. The beer wasn't as good as MBC's Granite Pale Ale (pint, 5€), and the nachos were light-years inferior. The teenagers didn't wear oversized Rip Curl and Special Blend baseball caps, and the barmaids weren't half as nice as the ones at Le Pub. Frankly, you can keep the Riviera - I'm glad I'm back.
Had another great bike ride down the Merlet this week too - if you've not done it before, it's a downhill run from the wildlife park high above Les Houches, which brings you all the way back down to the Vert hotel. It's quite a ride...especially the first 100m which involve billygoating down an exposed singletrack with a 50m drop off the side of it! We took our time and the trail mellowed out as we passed the upper bridge in the trail. If you know the track, you'll be pleased to here that a new bridge has been put in which looks substantially stronger than the pair of wooden planks you normally have to skip across. Find more information on the Merlet trail in my Chamonix Bike Guide, which was published recently.
This week I'm going to head up to the Brevent bottom station and check out what the new ticket office and gondola departure station look like, and cast my vote on whether the Compagnie du Mont Blanc will actually have it finished in time for skiing this winter. I'll post some photos up in the next column. Meanwhile here are a couple of shots from a trip we did to the Emosson Dam just over the border in Switzerland the other day...the colours of the autumn trees as we went over the Col des Montets were just awesome.
Finally, just for information, if you're an ex-pat in Chamonix and after reading this are yearning for a juicy pork pie, I recommend stopping by the Cham butcher opposite Lacoste. Their 'paté en croute' is pretty damn close. And if you're visiting the town this winter, do your chalet hosts a favour and stick some of the real stuff inside your suitcase for them!
