Day 10 - July 7, 2024 (France to Canada)
Our Mountain Drop-Offs van arrived early in the morning after a final fantastic buffet breakfast at the hotel, and it was interesting to see the drive this time, since we (or at least Mark and I) weren't asleep (Miles dozed off almost immediately, which may have been for the best, as I was worried the winding village roads in the Chamonix valley as we picked up the other passengers would make him carsick).
We had enough time in the Geneva airport to do a bit of final souvenir shopping - Miles picked out some Swiss chocolates to bring home for his friends.
It was so much nicer to not fly overnight, and we all enjoyed watching movies and tv shows or reading books on the plane. We had a leisurely dinner on our 2-hour Montreal stop-over. Oddly, our luggage didn't make the transfer, but it was delivered to our house the next afternoon. Far better to have it delayed at the end than at the beginning.
This trip was judged a success by everyone, and Miles is already angling for us to do something like it again!
Looking back:
- I can hardly believe that we lost almost nothing, what with the unpacking and repacking every day. Only our shampoo and Miles' sun hat went missing (and he had the hat up until the last day of hiking).
- We were very happy with the new gear we had bought. Miles said his hiking boots were "magical" (and indeed, there was never a twisted ankle or stubbed toe, which is more than I can say for the average school day). Darn Tough socks for everyone kept us comfortably cushioned. My sun gloves kept my hands protected from sun burn and never felt hot. My insulated water bladder worked brilliantly - it's so much more refreshing to sip cool water while working hard. My new Sunday Afternoons sun hat (which I bought because I wanted a stiff brim that could hold up to wind) was well-ventilated, blocked the sun, yet had good visibility under the brim, and withstood the astonishing wind atop the Grand Col Ferret mountain pass. Most importantly, having enough hiking poles for all of us was incredible helpful on tough ascents and descents.
- We spent a lot of time getting in shape, and it worked. Mark and I had started with Pilates and weights with Jessica Valant Unlimited a year and a half earlier, making home work-outs part of our daily routine. Then The Jar Pickleball Club opened near our home this winter, adding regular cardio fun for the whole family twice a week. This winter I also discovered Essentrics training, which fixed my wobbly knees and Mark's stiff hips and lower back - probably the most valuable preparation of all. We got out for weekend hikes as much as possible this spring, and even did some laps up and down Earl Bales ski hill in Toronto. By the time we started the trip, I felt like I was in the best shape of my life. But it was still a surprise how challenging the hiking was - there's just nowhere in the Toronto area to realistically prepare for 2-3 hours of unrelenting ascent or descent. Nonetheless, we had no injuries or strains - just extraordinarily tired bodies at the end of each day, yet refreshed each morning to do it again. I'm so grateful that we're blessed with the good health to take this on as a challenge just for the fun of it - a choice that is not an option for my sister and brother-in-law, who I was thinking of every step of the way.
- The donkeys had been a key selling point for Miles in deciding on this particular guided trip, but leading the donkeys was more work than we had thought it would be. They each had a different personality to accommodate - François couldn't stand not being in the lead, Éliza would lag slowly unless she heard someone chattering behind her, and Rhubarb was alarmingly jumpy around cow bells. And they all wanted to stop to graze on the greenery along the trails all the time (we were constantly yelling "Eu [insert donkey name] - allez!"). Yet we were grateful to not have to carry full packs, and it's hard to imagine we could have done it so comfortably without them.
- We were lucky to have great weather for almost the entirety of the trip, especially given that there had been catastrophic flooding in nearby Zermatt, Switzerland, just the week before. Every time it predicted rain it held off until just about the end of the day, and the only oppressively hot weather was our first day in Chamonix. We're grateful we picked this time of the year - seeing the Alps in full bloom, with waterfalls and rapid rivers full of meltwater everywhere in the early summer season was truly spectacular.
- Our rafting trip on the Nahanni River last summer (for Mark's 50th birthday) felt like a real time of closeness for our family, but this trip was even more so. I think it was partly the shared challenge of the hiking each day (we had a few easy side hikes on our Nahanni trip, but much of our time was spent easily floating downriver). I also think the hours of walking side by side, not having other fluently English-speaking companions for in-depth conversations, and, of course, no iPad, lent itself to Miles talking with us at length. At one point, after hearing about Mark's travels in Central America in his 20s, Miles came up to me to exclaim, "Did you know that dad is actually cool?" That seems worth the cost of the trip in itself.
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