Alpine Activities

 

Alpine Activities

Welcome back to my blog! As a quick recap I spent this past summer volunteering in the French Alps for a month. During my time, I was determined to make the most of it, as I knew this was definitely a once in a lifetime opportunity. When I first arrived, I got familiar with the type of hostel, it was very much an outdoorsy, active lifestyle that everyone followed, and I was keen to get involved. Around the hostel there was many maps of mountains with trails and loads of posters promoting various activities.

Here is an example of a map that was in the hostel!↓

However, I found that it was quite difficult to see all the little trails. Therefore, I downloaded an app called All Trails. This app provided me with many hikes and options, and also with a level of difficulty (I only had trainers with me, so I was going for easy-moderate hikes). They also estimated the length of time it thought it would take me, as well as the route clearly marked out on the map.

This is what it looked like on the app!↓

I also found that there are also so many other options such as walking tours around big cities. There is a premium version that you can buy, however, I found that the free version worked fine, as long as I had data on my phone.

As for activities organized by companies, when I first arrived, I saw that there were so many people in the sky paragliding. I also saw that there were many posters around the village advertising it. I then had the idea of wanting to go paragliding, and I managed to talk myself into it. When I went to book it, the lady in the tourist office didn’t speak much English, so this was one of my first encounters where I really had to use my best French skills. Luckily, I managed to book it, and I thought I had the correct location of where to go. On the day of paragliding, 31st July 2023, I got myself to the correct location and we went up a massive mountain in a bus, to where we got the paraglides ready. I wasn’t nervous at all, until he told me I had to run backwards off the edge of a mountain.

However, it was probably one of the coolest experiences ever. We flew over 2 eagles, and the views from the paraglide were insane. It lasted around half an hour, and it seemed quite expensive (100€) for such a short amount of time, however I definitely think it was worth it and I would recommend it to anyone wanting to give it a go. I can firmly tick it off my bucket list.

Katie:))