They're not even sold in the nearest town called Chamonix.

After 2 months of traveling the midwest and not being as active as we would have liked, we arrived in Chamonix ready for some adventure. We weren't ready for the cold. Hahaha... the folk from Abu Dhabi have definitely acclimatised and are used to warm or hot weather all year round now! The weather in Chamonix was cold and wet. 'Nuff said.


The first activity was hydrospeeding down some white water. Let me quickly describe it. Picture us in full wetsuits, booties, gloves, flippers and helmets lying on a big foam board that protects you somewhat. That somewhat covers your upperbody but as our thighs and particularly knees found out, the board is a little short. We partially lay on these boards and made our way down the frigid white water river. We enjoyed it but probably wouldn't do it again.


The next day we were scheduled to do some rock climbing but there was low lying cloud reducing visibility and rain drizzled constantly throughout the day. No rock climbing in France.

The next day we went white water rafting. The rain from the previous day helped our cause and the river was flowing. The first thing was to go through a 20 minute long tunnel under Mont Blanc to Italy. The catch cry for that day was "Just popping into Italy for some rafting". The river was quite quick but generally low so it was a little dangerous, particularly if you fell out; thankfully we didn't. We had some good times on the river but it was one of those bilingual moments that didn't work. The guide would yell out the instruction in French or English (as the boat contained both nationalities) and then the Frenchies would be doing the instruction a few seconds before the English speakers or vice versa. Probably not the best whilst navigating rapids.


Biking was on the fourth day and the rain held for the majority of it. It was a great ride and the guide was completely honest throughout the trip. He knew we'd done a little before so we were doing some hard-er trails but then we came up to a steep ascent. The guide said it was steep but he didn't include "very, very". That was tough but the reward was a single track along a path half way up the mountain and then a cool descent to a small town.


Canyoning was the final adventure planned. Apart from total old hippy dufus guide, the falls and runs were pretty tame. We'd done some canyoning in Japan with larger jumps and longer falls. We had fun but had to keep warm from the freezing Alps water.


We did some hiking in our two "rest" days and scored with some great weather on the first of the days but the second was marred with low cloud and cold weather. The first day we hiked from Mt Brevent to Mt Fleger and we constantly looked across the other side of the valley to a cloudless Mont Blanc. It was a real special view from the hiking trail. Real special. The second day wasn't as clear and we did end up going to the top of the Mt Blanc viewing platform to see a white out. But we did walk from Aguille Du Midi to Mer De Glace (the ever moving glacier that extends below the tree line). We met two mountain goats along the way and saw a guy with baguettes sticking out of his bag. We loved both of them.






The other accomplishment of note is that our "one baguette a day" policy has continued up until Chamonix. We've had a baguette for breaktfast, lunch or dinner for 10 days now.

More pics from Chamonix: http://picasaweb.google.com/jenscully809/ChamonixFrance#