The feeling of being suspended in air and oddly in control, catching thermals to rise and drifting about is total freedom, not to mention the views! I loved every minute of it.
This was my first trip to Europe. I flew into Geneva, Switzerland and took a taxi over to Chamonix, France. I was a little bummed to find out that I wouldn’t get three stamps in my passport for Switzerland, Italy, and France. With open borders, I only received a Switzerland stamp when I landed. Silly me! It was an overnight flight and I made it to the hotel before check in so I checked my bags at the front desk and made my way to a park that was my meeting point for my first activity. Paragliding! I met my tandem partner and we boarded the gondola to the launch point off of one of the mountains across from Mont Blanc. There wasn’t too long of line from the cliff that I would be running off in a short while but the guy two ahead of me was a speed-flier and had to sprint off the ledge with his smaller, high-performance paraglider wing. He tripped. And broke his leg. So we had to wait for the helicopter to rescue him. I was pretty tired from jet lag and it was a beautiful day so I took a nap on the mountain (one of my favorite activities) while we waited. Eventually, the helicopter came and cleared him off our path and by then there was a long line of paragliders behind me.
Chamonix, France is a no-fly zone as far as commercial or personal aircraft and it is the paragliding and wingsuit capital! After I was strapped into a harness and helmet on, my tandem partner gave me a short set of instructions. “Just keep running off the ledge. Do NOT jump. I will tell you when you can stop running.” So with our 40+ foot wide paraglider spread out behind us, we started running off the ledge and before I knew it, we were airborne! I will take every opportunity to go paragliding again. The feeling of being suspended in air and oddly in control, catching thermals to rise and drifting about is total freedom, not to mention the views! I loved every minute of it.
Day 1: Fly from Billings (BIL) to Geneva (GVA)
Day 2: Paragliding in Chamonix, France
Day 3: Hike Chamonix to Les Houches
Day 4: Hike Les Houches to Les Contamines
Day 5: Hike Les Contamines to Refuge Mottets
Day 6: Hike Refuge Mottets to Courmayeur, Italy
Day 7: Free day in Courmayeur
Day 8: Hike Courmayeur to Refugio Bonatti
Day 9: Hike Refugio Bonatti to La Fouly, Switzerland
Day 10: Hike La Fouly to Champex-Lac
Day 11: Hike Champex-Lac to Trient
Day 12: Hike Trient to Argentiere, France
Day 13: Hike Argentiere to Chamonix
Day 14: Fly from Geneva (GVA) to Billings (BIL)
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