pre Tor des Geants scouting run and more pics

Well, the excitement is starting to build in town as more and more racers dribble into town. The highlight of the day was the spontaneous of meeting of all the North Americans in the main church square beside the race banner. We were all aware that others were in town, but didn't set up a meet time. Anyways, there we were, and it was wonderful to meet all the old friends again and see the new ones. Maybe between the twelve or so of us we'll be able to translate the race meeting tomorrow that is held in Italian.

But anyways, here's a short video I shot at the Col de Malatra, which I subsequently found out was the high point of the Alta Via 1 trail at 2925 metres high (10000' ish). Yes, the high point of the second half of the race comes with 17 km left to go. And 1800m / 6000' of descent from there. But at least I know now what to expect.

As I say a couple of times, the section was SPECTACULAR, I was just in awe of my surroundings every step of the way. The weather is trending better in the next several days, so the skies should be clear and sunny to let the views through.

Tor des Geants scouting run from lonerunman on Vimeo.

Monta Bianco in the background - wow, I can't believe where I am!!

Refugio Bonatti - pretty nice digs for hikers

Pretty obvious route marking for AV1, and my Crosslites were pretty happy to be on their home turf in Italy  :-)

The trail up the scree slope to the Col

There's not much chance of wet feet unless it rains

Jen Segger's gear explosion!

Daniel Probst, Beat Jegerlehner, and me.

Cafe for lunch beneath the mountains.

Yummy. Nothing like espresso and cafe latte on the sidewalk in Italy

Typical side street in Courmayeur. I love the architecture here.

Playing tourist in Chamonix & Courmayeur

OK, so my flight to Europe didn't start very well with delays on the first leg that caused a cascade of misses and a subsequent reroute from Vancouver. But I made it, and importantly, so did my bag of race gear. It was time to kick back a bit and get the lay of the land, acclimatise a bit, and brush off my highschool French. I spent two days in Chamonix France, and today came through the Mont Blanc tunnel to Courmayeur Italy, on the other side of the great white mountain. (gee, that almost makes it sound Canadian!)

Here is a quick photo journey of some of the highlights so far:

First night's dinner on my hotel balcony in Chamonix - local Savoie cheese, sausage and wine

It rained each morning with low clouds, so the mountains didn't appear often if at all.

Krissy Moehl's signed UTMB-winning shoe in the Rapatel sports store

Typically clouded view for me of Mont Blanc. This is about all I have seen of it so far.

A brewpub in Chamonix, run by four Canadians. What a find! The beer was great.

Mer des Glaces glacier, the biggest in Europe. Took a cog railway up here to Montnevers, then hiked back down.

Baguette jambon et fromage avec double expresso - French lunch a-go-go!

Cavern drilled into the glacier itself - wayyyyy cool! (in both senses  :-)    You can see last year's cavern to the left, collapsed and moved down the slope. Apparently this glacier moves 1cm per day - is that a glacial pace?

One of the most amazing things I have seen. It was surreal to touch the ice and wonder how old it was.

Deny this - here was the glacier's height in 1990. There were signs all along the path down with the ever-diminishing height, but it was most notable from this point.

Hiking down, the path went by a summer luge track.....

...and I had just enough time to squeeze in a run before catching my bus to Courmayeur. Wheeeee!

Courmayeur and the start/finish of the Tor des Geants is set up already! The weather was better here, and that is Monte Bianco in the background. The scenery here is going to be absolutely phenomenal!

Cournayeur is a small town. so it I was there about an hour before coming across Daniel Probst. We had a dinner of ridiculously huge calzone and pizza. The picture was taken by the people at the table next to us, a couple from Annapolis Nova Scotia - yay Canada!