"Great things are done when men and mountains meet." - William Blake

I love the mountains. Ever since my first visit to the Polish Tatry mountains with my dad when I was 10, I have felt a profound connection to them. I have been back twice to the Tatry (once with my dad again, and once with Monika). I have also seen the Canadian Rockies, though mostly from below in Whistler, going back to hike them is definitely on the to-do list for someday.

This time around, though we are ending up in Poland, we decided to skip the Tatry in the south and focus on my hometown of Gdansk in the North. On the other hand, we are visiting the Alps, so that has got to count for something.



Wednesday was our first hike in the Alps with Ilona and Nic. We met up with Monika's sister and brother-in-law here in France, and are staying with Nic's grandfather (Papy) in Annecy. Annecy is a happening little city nestled between the mountains at the foot of the large and gorgeous Lac d'Annecy.



So as a primer to the Alps, we hiked up to Lac de Charvin, at an altitude of 2018 m. It was actually a lighter hike than that sounds, though, since we started at 1158 m. It had a very nice steady approach most of the way, with only a couple rockier and steeper sections near the top. Just before the goal of our hike we also encountered a little bit of snow.

"So how the heck would you get up to this peak anyway?" Ilona thought out loud, as she surveyed the sheer rock face from our lunch stop along the shore of the frozen Lac de Charvin.
"The approach must be from the backside," I offered, looking around the large natural bowl we were sitting in, of which the lake ice filled in the bottom bit. "Yeah, look, the path goes along the inside of the bowl and then crosses over the lip over there."
"Ah, yes, I see" said Nic.
"Wait, what are you guys talking about?" asked Monika.
"The pass from the inside to the outside of the bowl, to get to the summit."
"Yeah sis, the path goes there, then snow snow snow, those two little bloops..."
"Right before the rock gets all craggy..."
"there's a path from the snow to the top."
"Yeah... I don't see it."
I took a photo and pointed the pass out to Monika with the help of digital zoom. Ilona pointed at the screen too. "See, beside the two bloops."
"Ok, I see it, yeah. I was looking lower."
"I want to go there," decided Ilona.
"Oh I don't know. I'm content with what we've done. I'm not going any further," I objected.
"Yeah, Lonku, of course you want to go."
"Hey sis, what's that supposed to mean?"
"Well, you always want to go ahead and do crazy things."
"Hehe, true," confirmed Nic.



"Niku, today you were the one pushing ahead on the snow. Usually, it's true, I'm the one who wants to go and you're the mumun [Vincent/Chmiel families' glossary - mumun: A suck, complainer, hesitant or lazy person]. But when other people are around you get all excited-like."
"Humph, I guess that's true."
"Well, we're not going further on this snow," it was finally agreed.



This is a photo fo the four of us at the elevation of the lake with Mont Charvin in the background. As you can see, the further approach to the summit was pretty much entirely snow-capped and thus would have required some serious hiking equipment.