Le Tour du Mont Blanc, Day 6

Thursday, September 6^th

Layover Day in Courmayeur, Italy

I woke up at 6:42 am and could have slept longer but we had decided to catch the 8:25 am bus to the gondola towards Helbronner Peak. This was the highest point we could reach as the connecting gondolas up and over the massif toward Chamonix were not in service. The person at the ticket office kindly told everyone that we may not be able to see anything at the top due to whiteout conditions but we chose to go up anyway.

Looking down on Courmayeur from the gondola

It was a whiteout when we arrived, but there were a variety of other things to see in the building. We toured a crystal display including some historical information about mining in the area, and looked at the displayed art. Sue and Nancy watched a movie on Paul Helbronner, a French topographer, alpinist and geodesist who pioneered the cartography of the French alps, that was excellent. There was also a nice café with internet and I got an e-mail written and sent to my family.

Our own geologist, Sue, looking at the crystal displays

 Colleen and I went up to the lookout and took a photo of ourselves in the whiteout.

Cold and white, but still a good time!

We "lost" Sue and Nancy and discovered they had gone down to see the Refuge near this gondola station – so we headed that way and bumped into Sue and she took us back there. We took an elevator down, down, down and then walked in a long tunnel (enclosed hallway) to the door at the end that opened up to reveal Rifugio Torino.

View of the long tunnel/hall that connects to Rifugio Torino

There were numerous folks loaded up with ropes, ice axes and crampons heading out to walk on the glacial ice. It was starting to snow so we scurried into the refuge and looked around. When we came out we noticed the whiteout was lifting and we could see parts of the mountain including where alpinists were walking on the glacier. We found Nancy and returned to the observation deck to see the views and go for the all-important group photo.

See the tiny tents and the major rocks and ice? There are alpinists down there too!

Having even more fun now that we can see the mountains and glaciers!

We finally got back on the gondola and headed down to the Midi-level to tour the alpine garden. This garden collects and grows alpine plants from all over the world. It was excellent.

Sue enjoying the comprehensive and well-labeled alpine garden

There was also a beautiful photography exhibit with amazing photos by Steve McMurry. You know who he is through his photos. There was also a continuous run of short movies so we watched for awhile and saw some images of Aosta, the Roman village that Geoff Barnard and Diane Vosick had told us about back in Flagstaff. This got us thinking about how we could get there the next day...

When we returned to the hotel, Sue talked with the the friendly concierge and figured out how to get to Aosta by bus and then take a taxi ride most of the way to our next refuge, Rifugio Bonatti! We had missed the bus coming back from the gondola so we had actually made a date with our taxi driver for the next afternoon.

I thought about my mother all day as it would have been her 85th birthday. She passed away in January and I miss her every day. My sister made sure I have a way to carry her with me each day.

Honu in Hawaiian are a special animal to my mother, my daughter, and I

My beautiful mother who lived barefoot in Hawaii for the last 31 years of her bountiful life

Summary Day 6: 6734’ / 2053 m up and down on the Skyway gondola