To Mont Granier and back again...

This past Saturday I(Adam) went on a hike up the mountain that we can see from our window. I had two other fellow hikers with me. They both will work in Francophone Africa, one in Central African Republic and the other in Senegal. The name of the mountain is Mont Granier. There is a bit of a history in that in the mid 1200s a large portion of the mountain fell and completely destroyed the village at its foot. The debris of the fallen mountain covered 12 square kilometers. It truly was the most beautiful views I've ever seen in my life and I imagine I will ever see this side of death.

The picture above is a cliff running parallel to us a the beginning of the trail. We actually climbed much higher than this cliff.

Below are the guys who I hiked with Tim (L) and Neil (R)

Here are some Alpine cows. They really did have the bells on their necks. In fact one time a whole herd was resting right where our trail was.

Below is a portion of the trail that was in the Alpine meadows, if you click on the picture you can see little people below to get scale of how large the valley truly is.

Below are two boulders that fell off the moutain that we were climbing and Mont Blanc is in the background.

A video with a surprise turn in our trail. We had to scale rocks on a good size portion of the trail

Mountains and meadows with purple summer flowers.

Sheer cliffs near the summit.

At the summit 1933m/6200ft (top) Most of the mountains here have a cross on top (below)

In summary, our hike gained over 850m (2800 ft), it took us from 9:30 in the morning to 5:45 in the evening, I have 4 large blisters, a strained left calf, and a new appreciation about how you should bring more water than you think that you might need. I was so glad to get back to Ruth and John. Although I've never seen more natural beauty, there are some things you only do once and places you only visit...there's no place like home.