I’ve just had my sixth Chamonix summer.
Driving north-west from Milan to the Italian-French border, through the 11.6km Mont Blanc Tunnel, and shortly after entering France, you’d arrive in Chamonix. The whole journey takes you about two and a half hours.
Chamonix is a small city nestled in the Alps at an altitude of about 1,100m. In the summer the daytime temperatures are high, but at night, the coolness is all yours to feast on.
Its summer coolness isn’t my only reason being in Chamonix. But also for that unique “full-of-life” vibe which is hard to describe and can only be experienced in person.
From Chamonix, you can either take a bus or drive to the nearby trails. Some trails are even walkable straight from the city.
Since I was a child, I have always been fond of hiking. I used to hike with my mother on weekends. Later I hiked with an after-school institute teacher, who was like an aunt to me. Then during those high school years when academic performance was all I could care about, the mountains left me. Fortunately at university, there were a few hiking trails on campus. Not to mention how easy it was to reach the countless hiking trails surrounding Taipei. Then I moved to the ever so flat England. After some time without mountains, here I met Chamonix in 2018. It felt exactly like reuniting with a long-lost friend.
When in Chamonix in the summer, I usually go on one trail a day. But since last year, the frequency has dropped to suit my schedule to study for the WSET exams. Even if I don’t go, on my study break, I can just look up from the balcony to enjoy the stunning view, the snow-covered peaks and the magnificent glaciers, which make it all the more difficult to return to the study.
Each trail in the vicinity of Chamonix has its own character. The Servoz village trail greets you with a few beautifully decorated chalets as you just begin your hike; La Chorde suitable for steep slope lovers; Les Praz perfect for families, and if anyone loves playing golf, there’s a course right next door; the glacier is right in front your eyes when you climb to the top of L’Aiguille; On La Jonction trail, you even get to walk parallel with a glacier.
On those days when I hike, I’d set off early in the morning with a flask and a homemade sandwich. When I reach the destination, I lunch and then get back down. The trails mentioned above usually take you about three to four hours to complete and do not require any special equpiment aside from just breatheable sportswear and hiking or trail running shoes. The use of hiking poles is entirely up to you, definitely not a must. In the case of running into a trail that happens to have spring water, you can fill up your flask with the cold spring water and take a sip, which would wipe out your fatigue in no time. And even so close to the freezing point, the water could never give you a headache.
Besides hiking, Chamonix also offers many other sports: paragliding, canoeing, mountain biking, rock climbing and so on. In the summer, every time you take a stroll around Chamonix, all you feel is that one of a kind “full-of-life” vibe, which climaxes at UTMB in the last week of August.
I’ve been following UTMB since two years ago. Last year a friend of mine happened to be a participant in the race. I was cheering for him both at the beginning and at the finish line. He told me he’d slipped at some point and suffered a knee injury. Then whatever had happened to him during the race later rewarded him with two terribly swollen feet. He had to wear a pair of giant shoes for a while.
The 170km UTMB aside, there are also other races in the same week that are more amateur-friendly and do not ask for any points, such as ETC (a 15km long, 1,200m vertical climb in four and a half hours), which I might consider competing in the near future!
