There are a number of exhilarating excursions around Chamonix which are worth experiencing – take your student card or hostelling card for reduced rates on some of the téléfériques. One is to take the rack railway from the Gare du Montenvers through the pine woods up to the vast glacier known as the Mer de Glace (May–Sept 8.30am–5.30pm; Oct to mid-Nov & mid-Dec to April 10am–4pm; €19.60 return). Once you get there you have the option of taking a short cable-car ride down into the ice cave carved out of the Mer de Glace every summer (€3).A second excursion is to ride the very expensive, and often very crammed, téléférique (summer daily from 7am; return €33) to the Aiguille du Midi (3842m), one of the longest cable-car ascents in the world, rising no less than 3000m above the valley floor in two impossibly steep stages. Penny-pinching by buying a ticket only as far as the Plan du Midi, which is used principally by climbers heading up to the routes on the Aiguilles du Chamonix, is a waste of money: go all the way or not at all. If you do go up, make the effort to go before 9am, as the summits tend to cloud over towards midday, and huge crowds may force you to wait for hours if you go up later. Take warm clothes – even on a summer's day it'll be below zero on the top – and suntan lotion is also advisable to protect against the glare off the snow. You need a steady head, too: the drop beneath the little bubble of steel and glass is terrifying. The Aiguille is an exposed granite pinnacle on which the téléférique dock and a restaurant are precariously balanced, and from which the view is incredible. At your feet is the snowy plateau of the Col du Midi, with the glaciers of the Vallée Blanche and Géant crawling off left at their millennial pace. To the right a steep snowfield leads to the easy ridge route to the summit of Mont Blanc with its cap of ice. Away to the front, rank upon rank of snow-and-ice-capped monsters recede into the distance. Most impressive of all, closing the horizon to your left, from the east to south, is a mind-blowing cirque of needle-sharp peaks and precipitous cliffs: the Aiguille Verte, Triollet and the Jorasses, with the Matterhorn and Monte Rosa visible in the far distance across a glorious landscape of rock, snow and cloud-filled valleys – the lethal testing ground of all truly crazed climbers. A third – cheaper – alternative is to take the lift up to the Glacier des Bossons (daily: July & Aug 8am–6pm; €8), where you can see the biggest precipice in Europe (a drop of 3500m), as well as the Alp's lowest ice face. A nature trail at the top, along with the spectacular views, makes for a good half-day outing.
Pages in section ‘Around Chamonix’: Chamonix valle hikes.
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