Linda Cohen Dickens

Our guest today is Linda Cohen Dickens, who with her husband, Harry, hiked the Tour du Mont Blanc.  In the podcast (there’s a link to listen at the top of the page), she describes the scenery, the challenges and the wonderful food she ate and the interesting people she met.

This is a difficult hike (ATA rating of 4-5) but IT IS DOABLE if you are in shape and you train!  This is not a hike to ‘learn on the job’.  No technical skills are required, but there are some steep ascents and descents (bring your poles!!!).  Also, like most mountains, even in the summer, you need to always be prepared for extreme weather conditions and sudden changes.

One great thing about this trip is that you can tailor it to both your time AND budget!  You can do it on the cheap by backpacking or camping (forwarding your pack), you can stay in the mountain huts, or upgrade to pensions and hotels (some legs you will need to use the hut or skip ahead) – see links on the free Travel Planner for guidance.

Remember that you have ALL DAY to do it!  You can do this!!!  I’ve rounded up the daily time averages.  To use this chart, for example, Leg 1:  Les Houches, you would have all day to hike ten miles (16 km) , and during the course of the day, you will be climbing a total of  2120′ up (646 meters), and descending over the day 2075′ (633 meters ).  So of the 16 km (= 16000 meters) you are hiking that day, 646m + 633m = 1279m (1.3 km) of ascent or descent, which means about 8% of the hike you will be going up or down, and the rest of the time won’t be killer.  This does not tell you if you have sharp ascents or descents.  That’s where your guide book comes in handy.  The hours listed above can give you an idea, too.

‘When in Rome’…scratch that!  I mean France!  Linda explains about the tradition of drinking a special coffee with sugar, orange and lemon (often with Grand Marnier liquor) out of this unusual container called a Friendship Cup.   Coupe de l’amitié is the name of this unusual handcrafted cup used in the Aosta valley on the Italian/French border.  Your group MUST finish the cup, while toasting good health and happiness (or it’s bad luck!).  No complaints there!

The first person says this while passing the cup : “Le café valdotain dans la coupe de l’amitié “ [According to Google Translate: The Valdotain coffee in the cup of friendship.”]

The person receiving the cup responds, “Santé bonheur!  “Que grand bien te fasse” [Great health and happiness to you!].  And the cup continues to be passed around to ALL guests at the table counterclockwise until emptied.  The cup cannot rest on the table until it is finished to avoid “bad luck”.

This handcrafted cup is usually made from walnut or maple (I know:  I thought it was clay!) and the round top is often embellished with common alpine symbols such as ibex heads, snakes or edelweiss flowers.

Great companionship and comradery in a small group setting.  Linda went on a guided tour which also included kayaking and biking.  She even hang glided for the first time over the mountains above Chamonix (she’s braver than me)!

Here’s how I would train to hike the Mont Blanc circuit:

Ideally at least three months in advance (but really make sure that it’s at least two months), start taking walks or hikes with your pack two times per week for 30-60 minutes, and then on one day each week, hike 2-3 hours with your pack.  If you live where it’s flat like I do, you may need to do the short hikes on a treadmill on the incline and then find some hills for your longer hikes (or do more boring treadmills).

In addition, your body, especially your shoulders and feet, need to get used to carrying weight.  BUT DON’T ADD A LOT OF WEIGHT AT ONE TIME!!!  Ease into it.  Collect water bottles (I prefer the thicker walled juice containers with heavy caps because they are less likely to leak).  Fill the bottles with water.

I use a heavy duty trash compacter bag as a liner in my pack.  Put several of the filled water bottles to add some weight to your pack.  You may need to cushion them with a towel so they don’t poke you in the back.

Put the pack on and load with enough water bottles so that you FEEL the weight, but it doesn’t feel very heavy.  This is your start weight.  Then each week add no more than 10% more weight.  The goal is to build up and get used to carrying more weight than you’ll be carrying on the actual adventure so that when you are actually hiking the trail, your pack feels light.  This helps to compensate for not practicing with much elevation.

For example, if I find that my pack is going to weight about 20 pounds  (see my day pack packing guide), and I start feeling the weight at 15 pounds, here’s what my training weight might look like:

DO NOT increase your weight more than 10% per week so your body can adapt easier.

European Alps: Mont Blanc Epic Hike with Linda Cohen Dickens

Considered by many to be the most beautiful hike in Western Europe, and some people would even argue the world, the Tour du Mont Blanc or the Mont Blanc Circuit, travels through France, Switzerland and Italy through the majestic European Alps. You’re going to walk through seven valleys through cute little villages with various different cultures, different foods and different languages, through forests and Alpine meadows, while gazing up at massive granite peaks. You could be enjoying a gourmet French meal one night and then downing a fabulous Italian pasta the next. It generally takes ten to twelve days to cover the entire 110 miles or 170-kilometer trail. Most folks hike it counter-clockwise from Chamonix in France so they come upon the view of Mont Blanc from its most scenic vista.

However, like we learned from episode five with Rosemary Burris, there are several advantages of hiking against the crowd. When you travel clockwise on this trail, you’ll have the trail all to yourself in the morning and you get to meet new people each day. This adventure is more difficult than most of the trips that we explore on the Active Travel Adventures podcast, but it’s such a stunning trail with such epic beauty that I had to cover it for you. This is a trail that you must train for so that you can enjoy your hike rather than getting on the job training. There are some steep uphills and downhills and you’re going to be hiking five to eight hours a day. However, if you’re fit and you do train, you can do this hike. No mountain gets overly high. The highest is under 8,000 feet which is 2,700 meters, so altitude sickness shouldn’t be an issue.

For the truly fit, you can even backpack this trail. However, it is possible to day hike it from one village to the next or one hut to the next. There are plenty of accommodations along the way including the mountain huts that you can reserve and you can change dates if you need to if you have to change your pace a little bit. This is similar to the Swedish Kungsleden trail that we covered in episode five. This is a trail you can plan on your own or I’ve got a recommendation for a company that will affordably make the arrangements for you to do a self-guided hike. They’ll transfer your main luggage every day so all you have to do is bring your daypack and it’s a slightly shorter hike. Or you can do like our guest did and have the grand guided all-inclusive tour that combines some kayaking and some biking along with a small guided group.

One thing I love about this hike is you can truly make this your own hike. You can make it as short or as long as you’d like. You can do it on a dirt-cheap budget. You can backpack it. You can go hut to hut, you can go to pension to pension, a little bit step up or you can go to nicer hotels. You get the flexibility of both time and budget and get to witness some of the most beautiful scenery in all of Europe. Let’s get this podcast going. I’m happy to introduce to you Linda Cohen Dickens, who with her husband, did the Tour du Mont Blanc in the summer of 2017.

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Linda, thanks for joining us. Could you please introduce yourself, maybe tell us your age and a little bit about yourself?

My name is Linda Dickens. I am 64. We just moved to California a few years ago to be closer to the kids but we actually like it out here better than Florida because we’re hikers and outdoors people. We have loads of opportunity between Tahoe, Yosemite, we have Napa, San Francisco, so we live in an area where we can do a lot of outdoor activities.

You did the famous Tour du Mont Blanc with your husband, and that’s going to be our focus. Can you give us a brief overview?

We hooked up with Active Adventures for the second time. We did Peru with them a few years ago. It was hiking the Mont Blanc Circuit for twelve days. We loved Active Adventures for the first tour and decided to go again with them. They do multi-activity, so you have mostly hiking but you have usually kayaking and biking for a day or so. Then an extra day to do whatever you want. The trip was well-organized. They have you well-prepared. It was a reasonable price we felt for everything we’ve got. The tour leaders were always amazing. The Mont Blanc basically you went through Italy, Switzerland and France. You hiked eight to twelve miles a day and had great meals. It lasted for twelve days with amazing people.

Did you meet people from all over the world? Tell us a little bit about the people that you traveled with.

The demographics were about 58 to about 68. The majority were from the West Coast, more so from Colorado, California. There were two people from the East Coast. They all were in those demographics. There were two couples, there were four solo women, there were a father and son and then a couple of solo men. It’s very different from the Peru trip. This is what these demographics were. Everybody was basically the same activity level and was able to do everything that we did every day.

On a scale of one to five, five being very difficult not Everest difficult, but very difficult for an adventure. What would you put this at?

Other than of course the hiking-wise, the kayaking was probably a one to two. The hiking I would say between four maybe some fives. We didn’t do any rock climbing, but there were some intense snowfields that we climbed, snow bridges that we crossed, mountains that we went up. It was eight to twelve miles of hiking. You broke for lunch but they kept the pace even, so there were none of us that hung behind or lagged. We pretty much came up with the guide who was from Chamonix and he was wonderful.

I know that you’re quite an athlete. Would you say that the other participants on this tour were as athletic as you or could somebody that’s not as ambitious as you do it?

I actually think they were more athletic than us because the Colorado and California people were all avid hikers. We just moved to California, so we’re not hiking as much, maybe once every couple of weeks. We kept up with them. We were probably the least balanced with that activity level. I think they were above us. We held our own and had no problems.

Is it something that somebody like me who lives in the flatlands with no mountains could train for or is it something that might be too ambitious for somebody like me?

I think absolutely anybody could do it. We did Peru living in Florida. Slow and steady gets you there, and you just have to have a positive attitude. There were some tough parts but you just forge ahead with everybody else because you have to. You can’t lag behind and you don’t want to hold anybody up. Everybody helps each other.

That encouragement does help a little bit because it gives you that extra spurt, doesn’t it?

Absolutely. When you know you’re ahead eight to twelve miles the next day, everybody was so supportive and we all just got along so well that we were like one big team climbing the mountains

You didn’t know any of these people before this trip. They’re people that you got matched with because of this tour, is that correct?

We actually knew a fellow that did Peru with us a few years ago from. He was from Colorado. He does probably about at least two big trips a year. We did know Phil. He was with us on this trip.

These are pretty grueling days. How are you feeling at the end of the day? Tell me how you feel in the morning?

In the morning, we all got together for breakfast at the hotels that we were at. We would have picnic lunches every day so they would spread out little baggies with parts of our lunch. The women would usually take the bread because it was light but there was always cheese, fruit salads. We would pack our bags. They would either drive us to the starting point or we would hike to the starting point. Jean Marc, who was our leader, would say we’re going to have lunch up there and we would be looking up there and saying, “Way up there we’re going to have lunch?†Then you start hiking. The time goes so fast because the views were amazing. You would keep looking back at the village that you hiked up from and you would be amazed that we got that far.

Then they would spread out our lunch, and we had a beautiful picnic lunch every day. We’d sit, we’d chat, we’d rest a little bit and then we would get up to finish the hike. The end of the day, we’d get back, meet for wine about an hour later and have a great dinner, and talk about what we did and what the next day was going to be like. It was an amazing feel of accomplishment when you are done. In the morning, you had no idea how the day was going to go. There was definitely a feeling of accomplishment between all of us at the end of the day.

Even though you hurt and even though you’re exhausted and probably a little sweaty and dirty, why do you do trips like this instead of sitting on a chaise lounge in the Bahamas with a fruity drink or something?

It’s knowing that we did it. When we did the Inca Trail in Peru, to tell everyone that you did that, when we told people we were hiking the Mont Blanc Circuit, they were amazed. When we finished the Tour, we were already looking for what we’re going to do in 2018 because the tours themselves made you feel that you were capable of doing more than you ever thought you could. We don’t want to stop. We’re hooked. I do marathons and some of these were harder than a marathon, but more satisfying because it’s such a different area that you’re going to. The people you meet, not the people you’re hiking with, but the people you meet at the hotels and the people that you meet on the streets or on the path, that’s what makes it amazing.

It’s like you’re mirroring my exact feelings. That sounds amazing. Do you feel changed when you come back from these trips somehow?

We never stopped talking about them. We definitely feel changed. We’ve never done this before and we’re both in our 60s. The fact that now we’re starting these adventures gives us a lot to look forward to in the future because it shows us that there’s no limit.

What was the thing that made you take that first leap to say, “I’d like to try that?†It’s not a normal trip. Most people don’t do trips like this. They think we’re crazy. They’re excited for us but they think we’re nuts.

I don’t really know how. I must have googled Machu Picchu because we always wanted to do that. I looked at Active Adventures. We live in a 55 and over, and a lot of them do much less vigorous tours. Active Adventures was more than let’s say Back Roads. It pushed your limits a little more. They told you exactly what you were in line for. They explained everything and what the itinerary was. They had the kayaking and the biking. We like that mix but we like hiking more. A lot of them don’t offer you as much hiking on a trip as we wanted. They answered every question. They were always available to answer any more questions we had up until the day we left. They were very supportive. We would like to go on all of them, that’s why I’m planning the next Active Adventure trip.

Do you have a place planned in mind?

We’re thinking New Zealand. This was a very unusual trip from the last one. The last Active Adventure trip, only Phil had been on another one. This trip, we’d been on two of them, everyone else except one person and this was her first, had been on three to five Active Adventure trips. Some of them talked about New Zealand, Nepal. There was a girl there that did Nepal and was at the airport when they had the earthquake. She had stories about that. Phil has done Patagonia, some other one in South America. It was an unusual trip where they had done many Active Adventure trips and talk to us about them.

They did screen you physical wise. They wouldn’t let a ten-year-old kid do this trip. They had some parameters to make sure somebody was suitable for the trip?

They do ask you quite a few health and activity level questions. There was a family of four and there was a daughter that was fifteen. I am not sure about the age parameters because probably a ten or twelve-year-old could do this trip and they do have some families. They do ask you a lot of questions so they know where you fit in the trip. They’ll be very honest with you if they have any questions if you will be capable of it. They don’t want anyone to have a bad trip.

How would you describe the landscape? I’m sure the pictures I’ve seen don’t do justice.

We went in June. There was still quite a bit of snow. They said it would have been gone in two weeks. June is a good time for us to go away. Now that we’ve moved to California, we have Mount Diablo behind us. That’s it. These mountains were mind-boggling. They were spectacular. Because there was still a lot of snow on them, it made them even more beautiful. The fact that you would hike into the valleys, climb the mountains, the terrain was completely different. We slid down snowfields, we crossed snow bridges. We hiked through cow pastures and sheep pastures. The scenery was always spectacular. We were very lucky. We had twelve days of gorgeous weather. Sometimes it does rain but we were very fortunate. We were prepared. We had our rain gear if it did. We were never unprepared for what to expect.

They are transporting your luggage every day. You’re not backpacking. You’re day hiking, correct?

We were day hiking. We had a driver that was amazing. They took our suitcases to the next hotel. There was one hotel, I believe in Courmayeur, we stayed three nights. That was the longest. She either picked us up if we had to get driven to the next hotel where we were done with our hiking or we hiked to the hotel and then our luggage would be there. They were amazing as far as transporting everything, getting all the lunch stuff together for the next day. We never had to worry about anything.

You said the lunches were good, how were the

Dinners were great. We went to everything from pubs to the restaurants that had dinner. At the last dinner, they go all out. We had foie gras, we had duck, we had wine, it was amazing. The dinners, some of them were just pubs and some of them were local restaurants that were great to meet the locals.

Any interaction with the locals stick in mind mostly when you think, “I remember so-and-so from this pub or somebody I met the street asking directions.†Do you have any local culture stories you could tell us?

There was a dinner we had. One of the couples was having their 30th anniversary. They ordered something where they cook for themselves. It was hot in the pub and they decided they were going to cook all their food. Just having that hot plate on the table itself made everyone really hot and we were cackling. We were laughing because it took them a long time. Some of us moved to another table to have dessert. The waitress was hysterical watching a bunch of Americans goofing around in the pub. This was in Chamonix. When we went back to Chamonix, about seven days later we saw the same waitress sitting at a table with her friend eating lunch. We went up, “How are you doing?†Of course, she couldn’t forget us. She looked at us and all she could say was, “Are you still here?†That was great.

We also stayed in a very interesting hotel in Les Houches. The caretaker was the grand-daughter. It had been in the family since the late 1800s. We saw on the wall a paper that had a lot of Hebrew writing on it. We are Jewish, so we asked her about it. Her grandmother had saved some Jews during the war. One of the fellows that she saved had written a book about the story of her saving the Jews. She had gotten recognized years later. I actually said to the owner, “I’m going to order this book right now while we’re here.†I went on Amazon, and I said to her the book’s going to be waiting for me so I can read the story about your grandmother. That was amazing.

Do you have any particularly funny memory of something that happened on the trip? Something that makes you laugh every time you think about it?

They have a thing called a Freedom Cup. It’s this big stone cup with a top on it and they put this liquor in it. The liquor is on fire. You pass the cup and you take a sip. You can’t stop passing it around because it’s bad luck until the liquor is all gone. You say this thing, “Health to you and peace,†and then you would take a sip and then pass it to the next person. We finished it. It was just the thought that we did it. It’s something that they do there for peace and friendship. That was the second to last dinner we did it.

Did you have to use crampons or anything? Is there anything technical? Is this basic hiking if you know how to hike?

I asked them ahead of time. We took our walking sticks with us to Peru. I asked them ahead of time, “Do I need my walking sticks?†They didn’t say emphatically, “Yes,†but we took them anyway. I said to them, “You need to tell people they need to bring walking sticks because you really need them on this trip.†All of us had them. One girl didn’t bring them and they lent her one, which she used. It’s just the walking sticks you would need. They give you a packing list that to a tee we took every single thing on that packing list. Not that we used everything, thank God, we didn’t need rain gear, but they had everything you could possibly need during those twelve days. I would say definitely just hiking sticks, no crampons.

I wasn’t sure if you need any special supplies like crampons in case you did glacier walks or such.

We did slide down a couple of snow hills.

That had to be thrilling.

Not enough to not to stop before it went anywhere dangerous.

If you run into somebody you haven’t seen in a while, but they know you went on this trip and they say, “How was Mont Blanc?†What hits your mind first? What do you think of first?

The people and the scenery because everyone here thinks we’re out of our minds. Just telling them how beautiful the whole area is and the mountains. We still can’t forget what it looked like. Harry is in the process of doing our book on it. Then we had the opportunity to go hang gliding. I went tandem off the mountain. That was on our free day. There were opportunities to do other things on your free day also. Probably the hang gliding is pretty impressive that I did it. I may never do it again, but I did it.

I’m not sure I can do that. I’m proud of you there. Is your free day in Chamonix?

The free day was in Chamonix. That was the last full day we had there. Some people hiked. I think there were seven of us that went hang gliding. Some had done it before. Harry and I had never done it before. That’s what we did on our free day. They recommend the group that you go to and they arrange everything. We just met them and did it. There were so many people hang gliding. When you see them against the mountains and the clouds, you’re like, “Oh my God.†It’s pretty high up and it was something to be seen.

I’m not sure I’d have the courage to do that. I’m a bit of a scaredy cat about things like that. I feel comfortable hiking but I don’t know about that up in the air stuff.

I don’t like heights. They said to me, “You run up the mountain and then you’re up in the air.†I got hooked up with the guy that was tandem with me. I made sure he had a family that he loved. I was the first one. He said, “Stand up and take one step,†and we weren’t even near the edge. Before we knew it, we were on the air and I was like, “Wow.†I didn’t have time to anticipate to be scared. It was amazing floating over the villages and seeing everything from that high. You were way above the mountains. It was pretty spectacular.

Now you’re up in the air and there’s no going back. Were you scared or like, “I’m just going to go with it and enjoy it?†How do you feel then?

I wasn’t scared. He was wonderful and we were chatting it up. My stomach got a little queasy while we were up there. Before I told him my stomach didn’t feel well, he said, “Do you like roller coasters?†I said, “This is not a good time to ask me that. Let’s just float like we are now.†He was explaining everything. He actually let me steer a little bit and then the landing was so easy. Then I watched Harry go next.

There’s one common theme I’ve found with the people I’m talking to is about how quickly you bond with the people you meet and in doing an adventure travel activity. Do you see that when you meet somebody, all of a sudden you connect so quickly or much quicker than you do back at home for some reason? Do you find that at all? What’s your experience with that?

The people we had on this trip, we bonded. There was one couple that had their anniversary. We’re planning to ski with them in Colorado. They were the kind of people that if you’re near where they live or they want to come visit, you would have them over and be able to visit them again or travel with them again. We told Phil we were going on this. He chose to come along with us and we had a great time with him again. You do form a bond and you get to know each other. You’re together 24/7 other than sleeping.

Phil, you met in Peru. You weren’t friends before Peru?

No, we met in Peru.

This is another example of that bonding I keep talking about how you’ll meet these people when your adventure traveling that the bonds are so quick and so deep that you end up traveling with people that you didn’t know previous to that trip. This is how I’ve been traveling in the last couple of years. I’ll meet somebody on one trip and that arranges the next trip that I’m going. I’ll meet someone in that trip and then I’ll end up joining them on another trip. I keep calling it like this interwoven slinky that’s gotten all tangled because you get all these interconnected friendships. It’s so cool. Is there anything that I did not ask you that you wish that I had that you would like our audience to know about the Tour du Mont Blanc?

They’re very well-organized. They’re very clear with their itineraries. They’re very clear with packing list. They’re very clear with costs. They’re very clear screening people to see if this trip is good for them. They answer all your questions, especially when you’re trying to pick which trip might be the best one to do. They have one to the Galapagos. They said, “You may want to save that until you’re older.†They want to know what you’re interested in seeing. I would recommend Active Adventures. We had nothing critical to say about them or negative to say about them.

Even the girl that was in the earthquake in Nepal with Active, never thought twice about not repeating another trip with them. It tells you something. She was in there with them during a catastrophe. She said they handled it really well. That says something about Active to be able to respond to something like that, it’s so catastrophic that you’re not expecting. The prices are fair. The fact that you do some kayaking and biking but the majority is hiking, which is really what we wanted, as opposed to other trips that do hiking but may have just as much biking or something else.

I want to ask you. Did you have a local guide as well as an American guide? How does that work?

We had a local guide, he was amazing. He actually carried the torch when the Olympics were in Chamonix. He’s done this all his life. Him and Corin, who was the driver, were wonderful. We also had Andy who was from Active Adventures, but pretty much the local guide did all the guiding and answered all our questions. Andy was great because he helped everyone with whatever they needed as far as questions regarding the trip. We had another guy in Peru that was higher that is an Active Adventure group leader, who is also amazing. They’re respectful of the local people as well as all of us, as well as anybody they run into, which says something about their character.

There are a few more things I want to talk to you about the Mont Blanc. You may have heard that this glacier covered mountain is the deadliest mountain in the Alps and this is true. However, I want to emphasize that you’re not actually hiking Mont Blanc, but you’re hiking around the mountain range and looking at it to see its majesty. Mont Blanc, at just under 16,000 feet or 4,800 meters, is about twice as tall as the mountains you’ll be hiking on this tour. The Mont Blanc Circuit is not a technical hike or a climb but it’s a walk. However, there are times that it’s a difficult walk so you need to train for it. The key to training is consistency. In a nutshell, at least twice a week, I’ll use my backpack with a little bit of weight to get used to carrying some weight on my back. Then once a week, I’ll do a little bit longer hike of two to three hours. I’ll start that at least two months beforehand, but that’s it in a nutshell.

Once a year usually late summer or late August, early September, ultra-marathoners run the trail in about 21 hours. You want to make sure to find out when they’re running so you can avoid them unless you want to see them. If you are going to be there on the day they’re running, you want to make sure you book your accommodations in advance because everything is going to get booked. An interesting historical note is that in the late 1700s, Mont Blanc was finally climbed and created the sport of mountaineering. As part of the Mont Blanc massive mountain range, Mont Blanc is the highest point in Western Europe and the tallest in the EU. This beautiful region attracts over six million visitors per year. Twenty thousand hiked the Mont Blanc trail. To avoid snow, it’s best to go in late June and finish up by early October. I would even say maybe make it a little bit earlier. I would try to finish by mid-September myself. That’s not to say you’re not going to have any snow because mountains can always be unpredictable, but you’re likely to have the best weather during this time frame.

Remember, it could be chilly and even cold even in the summer, often 40 to 60 degrees during the day which is five to fifteen degrees Celsius, and lower at nights. I would keep my thermal jacket and my rain gear with me at all times to be prepared for any sudden change of weather. The mountains can be unpredictable weather-wise. I would figure your pack weight to be somewhere around twenty pounds, about nine kilograms. You might want to pick up a copy of my personal packing list at www.ActiveTravelAdventures.com.

On this hike, you’re going to be walking in several different ecosystems from fields and pastures at the lower elevations to Arctic tundra and Alpine Meadows higher up. If you can, you want to allow some extra time to sightsee, as you get to go through some cool areas especially Chamonix, which is the site of the first winter Olympics in 1924. It has one of the oldest ski resorts in France and it faces the north side of the Mont Blanc Summit.

I hope you’ve enjoyed the Tour du Mont Blanc. Please subscribe to the podcast so you don’t miss a future episode. If you’re not sure how to, just go to the front page of the www.ActiveTravelAdventures.com website and I’ll walk you through it. I’d ask you to please share this episode with some of your adventurous friends. Better yet, why don’t you grab your friend and plan to hike the Mont Blanc together? While this trail is perfect for solo hikers, it’s also great to have companionship as well. Be sure to pop me an email and let me know how you did, and post some photos on the Active Travel Adventures Facebook group.

Our thanks to Linda for sharing her adventure. If you want to connect with Linda, you can find her on Facebook at Linda Cohen Dickens. I do want to mention too if you’re interested, I was interviewed on the Zero To Travel podcast by Jason about an Alaskan adventure I did doing an Alaskan cruise, but not your typical cruise. I used the Alaskan ferry system, which goes to the same ports as the fancy cruise lines but this is a way to do it on the cheap. It’s not an adventure trip the way I did on this trip. Also, I did do a travel planner that’s included in the newsletter that you’re welcome to get. That will help you plan that trip pretty easily. I’ll see you next time. Until then, adventure on.

Important Links:

• Rosemary Burris – previous episode
• Linda Cohen Dickens
• Active Adventures
• Active Travel Adventures Facebook group
• Zero To Travel

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