Lausanne Switzerland...

Another dream come true...I was ont the TGV!!! Tres Grand Vitesse.... Very big speed... While i had hyped it up alot, it actually didnt feel like i was going so fast... But thats another thing off my non existant list of things to do in life... Next stop Japanese bullet train...I hear they actually shoot you out of a gun!

Switzerland is the outdoorsman's paradise...or I should rephrase....It is the welathy outdoorsman's paradise... Everything in the country is very expensive, including the transportation...but atleast in this case you get what you pay for! The trains and buses which are all organized together can get you to the most remote mountain villages! All the buses in the mountains are also the postman, so it is easy to get anywhere! And you go up and up and up and up! People are living all over the mountains! They dont have alot of room on the ground so they go up for towns and villages, and not just recently some of these moutain towns are very old, with fortrsses and what not! Cows roam the mountains, each with a bell attached to its neck... A delightfully annoying symphony of noise!

I went to Lausanne in the french part of Switzerland to visit with Andrea, a friend of a friend from Montreal who I had met once before... We set off the next day to the mountains in the Zermat region....Beginnning from the town of Zinal we headed to a cabin called the Grand Mountet...
All the trails in the country are well marked by yellow signs! Very clear and well done!














We started by walking up the valley...all the hikes begin at the treeline as many areas have towns all the way up that high!














Here is the glacier we headed to, it was unbelievable and on the way down we had to cross it at asafe well marked area... still slippy though! And it is scary to look down a crevasse!
















Dinner in the cabin...mmm veggies! (Andrea)














Here is the cabin, solar panels and all!We were quite spoiled with electricity...There was also a family there a couple limbers and a 70 year old couple who demonstrated to me that life does not end early...














Heading down to the glacier was a bit of a challenge, as the slope was somewhat steep, but the trail crews think of everything and there are ropes and chains in most places that require them...















Here is another glaciery pic.... this ice is very old and the glaciers creep along carving out the valleys....














This is part of the trail we tooke ot get to the cabin, you can see the rockslides go right over the passage!















Here is a view looking out from Lausanne.... The other side of the lake is France... The whole city is on a mountianside making for good exercise evry time you walk the dog, or even take out the trash!