Today was the rest day, so most of us decided to take the gondola system up to the mountains, known as the Skyway Monte Bianco (Itaian for Mont Blanc). My first thought was a glorified tourist ski lift, but boy was I mistaken. The gondola systems is a series of three ( or four, if you want to go down on the French side ) separate systems that are connected at each station. The first is a big single gondola that carries 50 or so people, goes up to a station at to 7,100′ and the car actually slowly rotates 360 degrees on the way up so all passengers get a chance to see all the views. The first station has a restaurant, tourist shop, outdoor sitting area (where people were sunning in lounge chairs), outdoor playground, a nice mountain foliage garden and a drop off point for trekkers. After a few minutes there, we got in the queue to ride the next gondola system up to the next station. That was the same type of gondola as the first, Both of those are operated by the Italian system. The second station was at 11,300′ and again had some amenities and exhibition items, but not the outside areas. It was mainly for viewing. There were also exits to start some glacier trekking and access to several mountain climbing routes.
From the second station we bought an additional ticket to ride the French gondola, which were small 4 person cars with three attached together. That was when the fun started. That system took us up and over (high over) 5 kilometers of glacier and mountain area. It was a long and slow ride, but very panoramic. The starts, stops and drops after junction poles gave one a bit of nerves every time. It ended up the Aguille du Midi or rock pinnacle Midi, not big enough to be considered at mountain to, but a large rock pinnacle in a mountain range. That was a multi layer station built into that rock formation. It have 4 levels, a restaurant, shop, several viewing areas, a tube around the side of the mountain, a glass bottom viewing platform at the top accessed by an elevator and several exits for access for mountaineers and rock climbers. We saw several groups of climbers crossing snow and glacier fields on the mountains and a few rock climbers that looked like they were attacking 90% climbs. The main thing was the fantastic up close views of Mont Blanc and the other mountains in that range. Also, the view of the huge glacier and the Chamonix valley in France. It was all breathtaking.
I don’t know how many times I get to feel so blessed to be able to see and touch the things God has created on this earth.
Psalm 24:10
