Day 3 Trekking
Le Ville de Glaciers to Courmayeur
10 Miles, 2400 ft Ascending, 2700 ft Descending

I’m pretty sure that heaven and earth meet here, in La Ville des Glaciers, in perfect harmony. How can I be sure? Because here I stand, in a beyond breathtaking valley, surrounded not just by mountains and all of Mother Nature’s glory, but also by cheese. Cheese! Beaufort cheese is made in this valley by the very folks that I’m standing with now, here in the “cave”, encompassed by shelves full of wheels of cheese. If I had my bicycle I’d strap one of these to my rear rack and pedal off into the Land of Happiness. But this time around I will instead be more than satisfied to know that the fresh hunk that was just sliced off that wheel will be part of my afternoon lunch. Okay, maybe I have to hike up a few more thousand feet in order to enjoy said lunch, but it will be worth every drop of sweat for a piece (or two) of that authentic hunk of cheese.

What can I say? It’s now our third day of hiking and the scenery continues to amaze and astound. I’m already left with no other adjectives than Wow, would could make for rather boring (but easy) blogging over the next week. Today we will cross over from Bonjour! to Ciao!, dropping down from France into Italy via the Col de la Seigne, at an elevation of over 8200 feet. I’d venture to say that we’re all feeling a bit more human on the trail today, our expectations of “hard” having been re-calibrated by yesterday’s mileage and elevation changes to values a bit more reasonable today. It’s amazing how perspective is changed by each and every experience; that which once seemed hard now feeling easier with every passing step. A metaphor for life, perhaps, that I gladly embrace.