Hiking (and Strolling) Chamonix Part 2: Emosson Dam and up to Bellevue

Emosson Dam:

The day after our Plan de l'Aiguille hike, we decided to take it a little easier. We had hired a car and thought that we should make use of it, so we drove into Switzerland and hair-pin turned up the mountain past the town of Finhaut to arrive at Emosson Dam (which took about 30 minutes to drive). Upon approach you are greeted with dinosaur statues which would seem out of place but I had already read about the footprints you could hike to. The dam wall is quite a site- it curves away from the mountain to look like its about to break like a wave and all of the tonnes of water would spill out to the unfortunate towns below. It makes you queasy looking at it. But you get over that when you walk down onto the wall and simply enjoy the magnificent views. In one direction the expansive artificial lake, in another direction, looking down the valley towards Mt Blanc. 

Because we had procrastinated for so long, we decided that a 5 hour round trip to the dinosaur footprints was not really what we wanted to do. So we took more of a stroll (hence the title) in the direction of the secondary dam further up the mountain and had our picnic lunch in the sun. 
It is a lovely spot and I would definitely come back to do a proper hike. You can choose to trek back into France if you are wanting a longer hike here.
We also saw the little train and funicular in action- transporting tourists up from the little town of Chatelard. While it looked like fun (and the reviews say it is great), it was a little pricey. We also got to witness some Swiss gents chiselling away at the assumably dangerous overhanging rocks from the roadside. It was a sobering moment watching the rocks fall down the side of the rock face and into our path! (They were letting cars through when they deemed it safe, but they never seemed to spend much time investigating this!)

Beautiful

funicular going up the last leg. train wraps around mountain. (Sorry for awful pic- was the only one i got with them in operation).

picnic spot

Les Houches to Bellevue:

This was my favourite hike of the few we managed to squeeze in to the few days we had. I like it when we make it up as we go along, which is what happened here. Initially, I had geared us in the direction of climbing up to Aiguillette des Houches- on the 'other' mountain range. But we had been on that side earlier in the week and managed to take in the views then, if only half way up the mountain. Instead, we had been looking up at Les Houches ski pistes all week and thought they looked like a great spot to hike. We would get a different perspective of Mt Blanc from there and even be able to see into the valley on the other side. So we drove to the bottom of Maison Neuve ski lift (1150m asl) and began the pretty steep hike up the Voza Prarion Les Houches blue run. The sun is with you for most of the hike, with a little relief coming from the shade of the trees when they canopy the path. 

It took about 45 minutes to reach the top of Maison Neuve lift including a quick stop for a picnic lunch outside the closed cafe. From there, we took a left and shortly made our way to Col de Voza. This is a little hub on the ridge line. Several pistes take you back down to Les Houches, but coming up from the other side of the mountain (Saint-Gervais, Le Fayet) is The Tramway du Mont Blanc. This tram takes you all the way up to Nid d'Aigle (2380m), at the foot of the Bionnassay glacier. It looked like an amazing attraction, but was closed at this time of the year. In fact, they had a helicopter delivering spare parts to workers on the line. (A fun watch! So efficient!)

So we continued on up to Bellevue which is at about 1800m asl. This wasn't a massive hike, but we really enjoyed taking in the views of the glacier Bionnassay. You could continue from here up to Nid d'Aigle and even Mt Blanc itself (if experienced or guided). It also makes up part of Tour du Mont Blanc which we hope to come back and complete more of!

The way back

Jim frollicking

I'll be back one winter!

Super weird shrine in the middle of the forest, just off the track!!!

We took a route back down through forest on a single track and popped out at la Friaz. We probably completed the hike within 3 hours, but it was a really nice one and there was nobody else on the track with us. I would recommend it for the perspective that you wouldn't get from other Chamonix hikes.

What hike would you suggest doing in the Chamonix valley? Comment below!