For more than a week now we have been living in the fog, or covered in the clouds hanging as low as 700 meters, or both — it is hard to tell the difference really. Most days the visibility has been barely one hundred meters. Just in last two days the fog has dissipated in the afternoon few hours before the sunset. However, after a clear and cold night the valley and our slope has been in the fog again in the morning. This has caused a phenomenon called inversion: the thick fog blocks the cold air near the ground, whereas the air is much warmer at higher altitudes where the sun warms it.

Today we wanted to see some sun and decided to drive up above the fog/clouds; we really did not need to go too far, just a few kilometers (15-minute drive) to the altitude of about 1000 meters to Plateau des Petites Roches (which is actually situated above our house). To our disappointment when we got there it was already getting cloudy, so after all we did not see much sun. Anyway it was much nicer than the oppressive gray fog, and at least we saw Mont Blanc in the sun (photo on the left, bottom row).

We had been to this plateau a a couple of times before, but this time we planned a bit easier hike — or so we thought. With 523 meters of climbing, this 8.5K hike in 3h 17mins was substantial: some sections of the trail were quite steep and covered in leaves, hiding all those hazardous loose rocks underneath.