Chamonix 2022

Sunday 18 September 2022

My final day in Switzerland combined two of my favorite activities... Sightseeing mountains and running up them!

Hannah and I went up the famous Aiguille du Midi cable car which starts in Chamonix.

The weather was picture perfect!

The gondola is the world's highest unsupported cable ride, and ascends a frightening height in a nearly vertical fashion.

You end up so high that I was actually quite discomforted by the altitude. Just walking around I felt permanently breathless and stressed!

It is hard to convey the magnitude of the views from up there.

Mt Blanc and environment...

There are lots of viewing platforms and things to see up there.

Vertical Kilometer

After descending back to town,

I convinced Mark and Neil to join me on running the vertical kilometer (VK) which starts on the other side of the Chamonix valley and is basically the emergency access track under a gondola.

Here is the view towards the VK/gondola route.

We started at the town church, of course!

The track wasn't really marked - they try to discourage people from running up it due to its unsafe nature. (Someone died falling off it recently)

Luckily Mark and Neil knew where to start, and I got into the rocky single track path that zigzags insanely up the steep hillside. (Just follow the signs that say 'Danger!')

I was using my running poles for speed and I felt good as I quickly ran ahead of the other two. 😁

I managed to run the first 300m up (in about 1km travelled) before I resorted to the more typical power hiking technique.

The trail got tricky at about 850m up. There were steel cables and rungs embedded in the rock face to help you not fall off the hill😳

So I reluctantly put my poles in my backpack and used two hands to scramble up. (No photos of this section due to overly competitive nature combined with strong desire to not plummet off the cliff)

I got up to the gondola top station, cafe etc, with my watch altitude saying 1000m. 😃 But it wasn't clear if this was the official top or not, so I went up a bit further to make sure that I didn't shortcut it!

I was tired, but was really happy with my run. I've always wanted to complete a VK, which are hard to find!

I did about 63 minutes for the climb.