The summer season is starting to get underway here in Chamonix and people are starting to come back in dribs and drabs. Katy and Sarah are both due back on Monday, and thank god for that. The boys need some female company to balance things out a bit. We’ve all gone a bit ferral. The delice is opening up agin in a week or so, and around the same time the telecabines in the valley will start running again allowing mountain bikers and parapenters quick access to the high mountains for the purposes of throwing themselves down them again.

The crag climbing season starts in earnest now, with the rock getting drier and warmer by the day. That brings an influx of climbers to the valley, but they tend to stay out of sight because they’re always broke. As my restauranteur friend once said when I proudly mentioned I’d been climbing that day…. ‘Dirty. Dirty. Climbers.’

It’s the tour busses that crease me up, though. The groups of Japanese tourists look so happy as they mill around on what they clearly believe to be the surface of some strange planet.

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