This spectacular Grand Balcon Nord trail in Chamonix, connecting Plan de l’Aiguille to Montenvers offers fantastic views of the Aiguille du Midi and Mer de Glace glacier. Chamonix is beautiful town in French Alps. To get here it is actually faster to fly to Milan than to Paris. From Milan, it is a 3 hours drive to reach Chamonix. This hiking trail in Chamonix is suitable for kids as the hike from Plan de I’Aiguille to Montenvers Mer de Glace takes only around 4 hours (kid’s pace).

Just the night before we went to sleep, we wondered if the sky would pour in the next morning, for the weather forecast said the possibility of raining was above 60%. If it did rain, then we will need to cancel off the long hiking trip for the next day. Well, the sky wasn’t look very good when we woke up, but not a sight of raining though. In order to avoid the crowds, we departed very early.        

By the time we reached mid section, Plan de I’Aiguille, the time was only 8.30 am. We were almost the 1st who arrived.            

This time, we would take the trail that lead us to Montenvers Mer de Glace. It said the walking time is around 2 hr 15 min, but we think we need 4 hours instead.        

    Yo, let’s go…      

Like said, the mountain looks different in dome weather, looks very mysterious instead. Also, I prayed that rain won’t pour on us that fast…      

    Our starting point.      

We were the only hikers at that early morning. The feelings was great, for we could take some sweet time and walk on our pace.      

Vincent who asked me to walk faster…    

The super giant rock that had attracted the boy’s attention. Athough a long journey this would be, it’s good to have the great views along the path to keep us company.    

For quite a long time, we couldn’t see anyone on the trail but us. Husband and I start wondering if we have followed the right path? But at that point of time, I guessed we just have to follow our intuition.          

    We continued the walk, with no stopping so far.      

The walking sticks that they have found on the day before, had given them a lot of fun throughout the whole journey. Kids.      

When I looked back from here, I could still see our starting point. Gosh, it looks like we didn’t walk that far as I thought we have.    

  Yeah, still a very long way to go…    

    The mountain ranges behind us. One of them is Aiguille du Midi.      

Vincent always feel curious when he get to see this kind of rocks stacked up by someone.      

   The little one feels the same too.        

We walked a bit further and finally saw the streams which the hotel people had told us before. He said the water is very pure and clean for drinking.        

     

The hotel people also told us that the famous bottled water – Evian, had taken their water from here.

             

      We could just drink the water from its original source. So cool…          

      Chamonix Valley.

  We took a short break resting on this big rock.

  The sun has show up a bit, but still quite cold.

  They just love playing the rocks.

We really enjoyed everything we get to see and play along the path. That’s the fun of it. I think we have been walking more than 2 hours by then.    

Another fun thing we were playing at that time was to look for crystal rocks everywhere along the path. The boys constantly showed us the small rocks that they suspected are crystals, and we, like expert, to judge which they are or they aren’t.      

The sun has came out, no sight of raining, and the view around this area has become increasingly clear & astonishing as well. I could feel the energy flowing into me, from head to toes.        

Personally, I like to go hiking with small children, because they will bring more fun and they don’t have the idea to quit in the middle. This will make the adults more determine to complete the whole journey.      

The 2 boys have given us so much strength in our life. Without them, life would be rather boring.

  Greeted by some beautiful wild flowers.

  just beautiful…      

    and I didn’t want to waste the beautiful sun shine…

    I like this picture.

Vincent had spotted a huge ants’ colony at the side. Oh dear, those are red ants, should hurt miserably if we got bitten.

 To be real honest, this place is so cool…If all these rocks roll down, they will probably buried & ruined the whole township. So, I think stability is utmost important here.    

This is so like the scenes we can only get to see in a surreal movie, awesome! Absolutely fantastic !!

    The time was 11 am. We have walked 2.5 hr already.

This place is so beautiful that we have spent considerable amount of time at here.

  Standing at Le Signal (alt. 2204 m).

      We truly enjoyed these 360 degree views, with no blocking.

    The world famous Montenvers Mer de Glace.

After 10 minutes walking down, we would see our end point from here…

My battery pack had started to run flat at this time, so I got to be more selective in taking the pictures. I hate it.

We could see the whole Montenvers glacier from here, absolutely stunning. We have completed this one way trip in 3 hr 45 min, a little bit faster than our estimation. Feeling very exhausted, we rested in a restaurant for quite a long time, before taking the mountain train to go back to Chamonix Town.

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