Chamonix, Savoie, the Alps

The Alps are absolutely lovely, I've decided ... we've been in Chamonix for 4 days, and each day we've taken a hike that has been extraordinarily beautiful, and yet each has been completely different.
The first day we walked along the mountain ridge facing Mont Blanc. The terrain was very steep, and covered with gorgeous flowering underbrush, because we were above the treeline.

Me, up really really high, with the Mont Blanc mountain range in the background

Bridget discovers an alpine stream

Then, the next day, we took several cable cars in sucession, in order to go all the way up Mont Blanc. This, of course, wasn't enough for me, and once at the top, I insisted that we also ride in these tiny eggs, hundreds of feet about two huge glaciers. This ride actually took us to Italy and back!

Here are the tiny eggs that we rode in!!

And here's me on Mont Blanc, notice I'm wearing a jacket. I was sweating in a tank top in the line for the tickets at the bottom of the valley. The weather here is weird.

Bridget actually hated this, but puts up a good front:

After the mountain-scaling, we went on a hike through boulder-filled hills, to a tiny lake. Here I am, carefully not touching the water, which was extremely cold.

And then yesterday, we went on a hike along a lower ridge outside of Chamonix. This was supposed to be the "pastoral" hike, and we actually saw (and heard) cows!! The hills were absolutely covered in beautiful wildflowers (although we saw several small white flowers, and thus can't positively identify any as edlewiese).

Here's B, reinacting the Sound of Music .... you can see she's escaping to Switzerland, which you can see in the background.