Michelle Gallardo
Chicago news gal with an addiction to pro-cycling, Ironman, running, travel and food. Always in search of a new adventure, way to torture myself.
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TMB Day 9: Trient to Argentière
Distance: 10 miles (16KM) Asent: 3254 feet (992m) Descent: 3298 feet (1000m) Highest point: 7,245 feet (2,211m) One last border crossing. Coffee in Switzerland. A glorious lunch in France. Mont Blanc beconing us once more. Such are the days along the TMB. One day to go till we come full circle. We are now in Argentiere just miles from our final destination of Chamonix. It’s been tough. My feet are nearly done. My calves even more so. And yet, the days have been glorious. Perfect weather. But will it last? Tomorrow there is a threat of thunderstorms, so we will start early in the hopes of not getting caught up…
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TMB Day 8: Champex Lac to Trient
Distance: 10 miles (16KM) Ascent: 2,571 feet (784 meters) Descent: 3,287 (1002 meters) Highest Point: 6,505 feet (1,982 meters) Trekking through the misty mountains. And rosti. That’s all. Lol. OK, maybe not all, but definitely the highlights for today. Leaving our charming little hotel in Champex Lac this morning things looked anything but rosy. It had been raining for hours and we delayed our departure till 9am in the hopes the rain would end. When it didn’t we resigned ourselves to the inevitable and geared up with our waterproof jackets, pants and backpack covers. Wouldn’t you know it. That did the trick. Murpny’s Law right? Within a few minutes of…
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TMB Day 7: La Fouly to Champex Lac
Distance: 9.32 miles (15km) Ascent: 1,627 feet (496m) Descent: 1,995 feet (608m) Highest point: 5,281 feet (1,610m) What a lovely day. Probably the easiest, and shortest day on the trek, today was one that can in some ways be considered transitional, but also just a day where unlike most, we had the opportunity to walk through what can only be characterized as quintessentially Swiss alpine villages. Beautiful chalets, hundreds-year old barn houses just waiting to be renovated. I kept thinking these would make an excellent episode of HGTV’s Fixer Upper! There were raspberry patches and adorable chicken coops. I also made a new friend…or two…of the feline kind. And I’m…
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TMB Day 6: Rifugio Bonatti to La Fouly
Distance: 13.06 miles (21km) Ascent: 3,020 feet Descent: 4,403 feet Highest Point: 8,457 feet Today we left our idyllic Italian mountain refuge behind, and crossed into Switzerland. Clocking in at 13 miles, it was the longest day of our trek so far. First, it was down the splendidly beautiful Val Ferret and then up the aptly named Col Ferret. At the top was the “border.” The crossing, as ever, was very official: a pile of rocks with the letter “I” on one side of the rock and an “S” on the other. I did pull out my passport and showed it to the rock just in case 😉 It was…
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TMB Day 5: Courmayeur to Rifugio Bonatti
Distance: 7.86 miles (12.64 km) Ascent: 3,300 feet (1,005m) Descent: 784 feet (238m) Highest Point 6,953 feet (2,119m) Not going to lie. Today sucked. Like big time. Until it didn’t. The first two hours out of Courmayeur can only be described as my own little corner of hell. Climbing shockingly is not my thing. And yes, I get that if you’re trekking in the Alps you’re always going to be going either up or down. But steep climbs at the beginning of the day, when I haven’t had a chance to warm up are always bad for me. The day before yesterday was the same. And just as then the…
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TMB Day 4: Chapieux to Courmayeur
Distance: 8.53 miles (13.72km) Ascent: 2,534 feet (772m) Descent: 2,704 feet (824m) Highest elevation: 8,234 feet (2,509m) Leaving France behind, crossing the border into Italy and peach pie. This is pretty much all I remember. OK. Not quite. I’m writing this five days later, which makes it easier to block out the tough bits, and remember just the good parts, which usually is how it happens. In reality this was one of our easier days. The beginning and end felt like we were cheating as there were bus rides involved. The first was necessitated by a change in the refuge normally used by our travel operator (which as a result…
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TMB Day 3: Les Contamines to Chapieux
Distance: 12.17 miles Elevation Gain: 4,291 ft Elevation loss: 3,080 ft Max Elevation: 8,169 ft Calories Burned: 1,735 Epic. Legendary. Mind-boggling. These are all superlatives we tend to overuse these days. It’s unfortunate because they tend to lose their meaning. Today was one of those days that defies description. On paper it looked like a very difficult day. And it was. On the menu were the climbs of Col de Bonhomme and Col de la Croix de Bonhomme. But it was a manageable sort of difficult, without the super steep gradients of days one and two. And honestly we were stopping for so many Kodak moments, we didn’t lack for…
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TMB Day 2: Les Houches to Contamines
Distance: 11 miles Ascent: 2,000 ft Descent: 3600 ft Calories burned: 1700 It’s nearly 10pm on Day 2 and I’m not going to lie. This will be a short entry. I’m exhausted. Every fiber in my body is begging for sleep. It’s been yet another beautiful day. So different from yesterday. We started once again with a cable car ride. This time from the Village of Les Houches to the trailhead. For many people this is Day 1 of the TMB, which honestly I don’t understand. Yesterday being as utterly mind-boggling as it was, why would you cut it off? Today was gorgeous, but in a different way. A lot…
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TMB Day 1: Chamonix to Les Houches
Distance: 7 miles Elevation gain: 2,675 feet Elevation loss: 5,900 feet Calories burned: 2,300 What a day. There is so much I want to say. Not sure how far I’ll get, because frankly I’m dead. Didn’t train much, if at all for this, which, well, I may pay for in future days. I didn’t speak of this trip much beforehand, because, unlike the Everest Marathon where I had more than a year to look forward to it and plan, I honestly didn’t really believe this would happen until I actually set foot on the plane. Probably explains the lack of motivation to train too. Let’s just chalk it up to…
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Geneva, I’m in Love
WHAT-A-CITY. Beautiful, vibrant, international, and in a perfectly-sized package. Geneva is that and so much more. Where to begin? I guess you can put it this way. Luzern is that picture perfect town you go to visit for a day. Geneva is where you live. Yes, I have a French bias. I’m not going to lie. Understanding what’s going on around me, and being able to communicate again has definitely been a plus. But beyond that. I don’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t this. From the moment I exited the train station I knew this was my kind of town. Extremely multi-cultural and diverse. It would be easy…
