This trip is not lacking in variety.  Colmar seemed quite distinct from Paris — in architecture, cuisine, number of Americans (we rarely overheard anyone in Colmar speaking English, while Paris seems to practically be a bi-lingual city).

Chamonix is worlds away from both of these places, totally dominated by the surrounding natural beauty and the exercise of getting on up to interact with it.

“Up” is  the operative word here.  There is lots of altitude to be gained, and the favorite sport seems to be going skywards. The valley is striped on both sides by gondolas and cable cars en route to the middle or top or bottom of a mountain.  Even in summer, when most of the ski lifts are still, there is much lifting going on.

We purchased a “multi-pass” this morning to allow us to go on just about all of them for two days.  It was quite an investment, but the cable cars don’t come cheap and our plan is to put as many as possible to use for us.

The girls got us off to an early start with their paragliding adventure.  We’re a little surprised and very impressed that they all went through with it, but none of them expressed anything but excitement about the experience.  In fact, Lanie is asking if they sell paragliders in the US. Her guide, who told us Lanie has definite pilot potential,  said in France you have to be 14 to fly solo; but you can practice with some  kind of “wings”  — we’re not entirely sure what he meant — when you’re younger than that.

Given that we didn’t have to sign a single waiver for three kids paragliding in Chamonix, I’m guessing the rules about the sport are slightly different in the US, where we have to sign wavers just for the trampoline park.  So she may have to wait a little longer than 14, but that doesn’t mean she won’t be searching for “wings” on Amazon as soon as we get home.

With paragliding behind us and the whole valley at our disposal, we headed right back up the mountain as soon as the girls were disconnected from their pilot guides.

A gondola and a cable car (bridging a great void)  took us to our first peak, Le Brevent.   We didn’t spend too much time at the peak here (the cable car ride was enough altitude adventure for the moment), but we headed down a trail that swiftly brought us across…snow.  Not everything has melted here, even in mid-July.    We slipped and slid in our sneakers through several snowy patches.

That was only part of the appeal of the hiking trails.  Across the valley we got magnificent views of Mount Blanc, gleaming with its glaciers and snow fields.  It never melts up there — good ol’ white Mount Blanc.

Our trail took us in the opposite direction, though, as we bucked the up/down trend and went across the south side of the valley.  The Grand Balcon Sur trail had us clinging pretty close to the valley wall,  picking blueberries on our left and avoiding a long tumble into Chamonix on our right.

We ate lunch at the edge of a huge alpine meadow filled with wildflowers, and made our way to the next way station, Le Flegere.  Here, we had the option to take a six-person chair lift to the summit, but decided instead to descend and head further into the valley.  We wanted to make sure we had time for our next adventure, building heavily on the snow theme.

A short bus ride (the bus is also covered on our multi-pass) took us to the village of Argentiere, where a gondola and cable car at the Grands Montets ski resort carried us to an actual glacier.

Generally, the idea here is to get to the summits as early as possible in the morning, when skies are more likely to be clear and the views of the valley at their best.  By this time of the day the afternoon clouds had already rolled in, so our views were limited.   We were essentially in the clouds for a lot of the time, but we got to walk right out onto the glacier.

Our visibility was good enough to see mountaineers a few hundred meters above us on the glacier, but generally there were few other people walking around on this outpost.  For this we have Zoe’s paragliding guide to thank.  She was the one who recommended this trip, expressing amazement that more people don’t find their way up Grand Monets.

For us it was a great choice. There was a little snow ball fighting, and we worked hard to keep Zoe from following the stream of mountaineers zig-zagging single file up into the thickening clouds.  This trail was not meant for running shoes, but it was still very inviting for Zoe.

Apparently this is another launch pad for paragliders, particularly in the winter.  The ski trail map indicated a section where you could ski right off the mountain and ride your paraglider down.    We would have to settle for taking the cable car and gondola to the valley floor.

As if all that were not enough adventure for the day, we followed these ramblings with a circuit of downtown Chamonix looking for a fondue dinner.  Unfortunately, while the place was thick with establishments offering cheese fondue, we could only find one that offered the beef in broth fondue that was such a hit last winter in Quebec, and the one place was prohibitively expensive.

So we changed gears, deciding go to a microbrewery tonight and then tomorrow utilize the electric fondue pot in our apartment to recreate the beef course.

Stay tuned to see how that adventure turns out.