CHAM- Wow!

This weekend, a bunch of my friends (Haley, Tori, Katie, Valerie, Catie, and Friedman) and I spent a couple days in the French Alps, and one day in Geneva, Switzerland. After flying into Geneva on Thursday evening, we took a hired van to Chamonix, France-- about an hour outside of Geneva. Luckily, we found an awesome apartment lodge where all 7 of us could stay. By the time we got there, it was already dark, but we managed to find an open market to satisfy our hunger (and thirst, if you know what I mean). After cooking some pasta (more successfully than Tenerife, mind you), Ben and I enjoyed a few beers on the balcony looking at the stars-- at least what we thought were stars. After closely examining a cluster of stars, they suddenly went out. Some of us (ahem, Catie) suggested it was a satellite; Fried and I wanted to say it was a mountain, but we had never seen something so freakin' tall. Our question was answered when we woke up to this:

I have never seen mountains as steep as these before in my life. Unfortunately, there wasn't too much snow, but it didn't take away from the scenery. Friday morning, we wanted to take a gondola to the top peak at about 4000 meters, L'Aiguille du Midi, but the gondola was closed. Instead, we settled for the next best thing- an €18 train ride to a glacier at about 2000 meters. When we got there, I think most of us were a little disappointed. The views were incredible, but for €18 not worth it. Luckily, we stumbled upon one of the coolest things I have ever done in my life. Let me explain:

After getting enough pictures of the view, we decided to follow the path for a little exploring to get our money's worth. After about 20 minutes we came across this crude-looking ladder bolted to the side of the cliff, leading down to the glacier. It took some of us longer than others to decide to go down, but after some peer pressure, every one of us decided to make the climb. We had to look ridiculous because none of us were expecting to make this kind of trek-- so most of the girls were in their boots and scarves, when they should have been wearing climbing shoes and carrying pick-axes. The climb was intense-- more intense than the pictures let on, that's for sure. (Mom, this was one of those things that it's better you know after the fact). All of us made sure of our footing and grip before making any sudden movements. After about 4 ladders and 3 stretches sidestepping along the side of the cliff, we all made it to the glacier safely, but that was just the first part. The most dangerous aspect of the whole thing was either the potential of rock slides or falling into a 300 ft hole, like the one below. And considering all of this was on ice didn't ease our anxiety too much. The glacier, however, was so cool. At 14 km long, 1800 m wide and 4oo m deep, it is the second largest glacier in the Alps, thus earning its name "Mer de Glace" of "Sea of Ice". This single aspect of the trip made the whole weekend worth it.

Thankfully, we all made it back to the train alive, and headed back down to the town. While walking back to our room, we picked up some essentials for the night, food and alcohol. After our daring climb, we all figured we should celebrate, but we started a little too soon. By the time 11 p.m. rolled around, we were plenty drunk (some more than others) and starting to get a little tired. We all turned in earlier than expected, but it was probably for the best because we needed to catch the van back to Geneva at 10 in the morning...