Ghost Trail

There is quiet here, but it’s a quiet that drills deep inside; an unfamiliar absence of sound that ushers ease while simultaneously delivering tension. This silence is the sound of abandonment, and for a moment —perhaps minutes— I’m absorbed into a world framed by rusting ironwork and stoic, industrial ambition; one that is now veneered with encroaching saplings and aerosol artwork.

A loud clang returns me to the present; the lift station’s metal sheet roof expanding in the afternoon sun. It groans as it pushes against its aging restraints as if trying to free itself from history. Clang. Clang. The sound echoes around the cavernous building and I’m almost thankful to have the eerie silence broken. I glance across piles of collapsed rubble towards flaking advertising frescos and a single ancient tram, still suspended in its dock on a weary cable, and I shudder; this is a place of both triumph and tragedy, a place of ghosts. I beat a retreat through a tiny hole in the lift-station’s thick, stone wall, to drag myself out to the comfort and familiarity of sunshine, a bike and a trail in waiting: a steep, technical descent that will, in places, prove to be a test of agility or nerves, or both. But then Chamonix has never been a place of easy-wins.

Up here at nearly eight-thousand feet, we are a world apart from Chamonix’ lift-accessed bike trails that largely manifest as erratically flowing lines scraped into the valley’s few alpage meadows —begrudging stabs by the authorities at juggling the clashing demands of tradition and a rising number of mountain bikers. Now, deep into shoulder season, the handful of bike-friendly lifts sits idle, silently biding their time until reanimated by winter’s influx of skiers, and so our trail riding dreams now demand effort. But even by Chamonix’ standards, with its rock-strewn, technical hiking trails won through long, granny-ring grinds, today’s descent commands extra commitment. It’s taken us four hours of hike-a-bike to arrive at our drop-in. We started shortly after sunrise with bikes already on our backs, launching straight into a steep ascent that traces a line between a straggle of abandoned lift structures.