Chamonix, Mont Blanc, Samoens...
 

Well, i thought i might as well get my arse into gear and post some pics of my most recent 'major' family holiday, which was last August. Looking back now, it was a really really nice holiday, with some breathtaking scenery, however i had not bought a digital cam at that point, so all the pics are taken using my dads (high end) film camera. Well, ive just finished scanning and editing them, so here they are. Obviously, with them being scanned, they are nowhere near as high quality as they are in the photos, and the true colour has been lost from them, even with some touching up on photoshop.

Almost every thumbnail will have 2 separate pics in it, because thats how i scanned them, and it would have taken me forever to separate them all! 8)

First, a sort of custom shot, of me and my mum. Now do you all see why im so god damn small? :lol: this was taken at the Aiguille du Midi, the highest point you can go in Europe without having to don a crash helmet and ice boots!
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Right on with the pics. The scenery from the Aiguille du Midi is breathtaking, theres no other word for it. On a clear day, as it was when i went up, you can see France, Italy and Switzerland all from the same point. I have never ever seen anything as beautiful as this before or since.

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This is the view from the top of the town of chamonix, its a big place, but loos stupidly small from the top. also shown are 2 of the brave mountaineers who dared to climb mont blanc
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The tip of the Aguille Du Midi, you can go up it in an elevator, but it was closed when we were there. in the second photo, the people in shot give you an idea of just how huge everything is
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Here are a couple of pics from half way up. you have to change cable cars here, and the final stretch up to the Aguille du Midi is the steepest cable car in the world. the tiny dot at the top of the mountain is where we were headed!
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We stayed just up the road (about 5km's) from chamonix in a little place called Argentiere, which is really nice. In the distance of the first picture you can see the glacier d'Argentiere, it seems petty from the ground, but if you get a cable car up there and walk right up to it, its amazing.
in the picture showing the glacier up close, you cannot possibly imagine the scale of it all. At a rough guess, the glacier could accomodate about 100 average size football stadiums, its MASSIVE. Every now and then, you'd see boulders of ice the size of a house roll down the hill, and about 5 seconds later the sound of the rumble would follow, that shows just how big it really was.
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some more pics of the glacier
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These next pictures are from a place near our first weeks destination of samoens. Its called the circ du cheval. You used to be able to drive up to it, but a few years back there was a bloody huge landslide or flood of some sort, and the road just disappeared overnight. so you have to walk to it, but its worth it when you get there.
The second shot shows just how hugely amazing the scenery was, unfortunately, its largely blocked by a mother :wink:
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On another day, we went up to this place near the Swiss border, where theres this huge reservoir up in the mountains, and on the other side of the lake are footprints left by the dinosaurs!
The views from the dam are amazing, and it really really reminds me of the opening credits from Goldeneye!
We saw this furry little guy on the way up, and put the car keys there to give an idea of size.
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You could get a combination of fernicular railway, small train, and cable car to this place, but we just took the road :D
It was an amazing driving road, full of twists and turns, and littered with switchbacks and hairpins. on the way back down, there was a guy coming the other way in a rosso red 360 - he must have had a hoot going up there.

And finally some shots from the various towns in the region we went to.
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Stunning pics Tom! I am a huge fan of the hills/mountains and the ones you seen take the cake!

The view in pics 4 and 5 is especially breathtaking!

How long did the cable car take to reach the top at Aiguille du Midi?

Actually not that long. There are 2 stages to it. You get on a car from chamonix, and that takes you to a kind of plateua as seen in pics 12&13. from there you change cars and you go right to the top. From the second point it must have taken under 5 mins, the cars are pretty quick, i think they average about 40mph.