Need a reason to go to France? What about some good wine? Or their world-famous delicious cuisine? Maybe the laid back and romantic French culture? No? Are these not reason enough to go to France? Well, what about hiking in the stunning mountains in the French Alp region?
Numerous hiking trails start from the town of Chamonix, and in the summer and fall, you can even take cute puppies like me in the ski-lifts that take hikers up the mountainsides.
My mama likes hiking and takes me into the mountains a lot. I have sniffed many a hiking trails and slopes in the French Alps. Sometimes the paths are so steep that no one, human or dog, can walk up them with ease. In several places, the authorities have bolted little steps and ladders into the steep walls.
When I was younger and came to a difficult section of the path, my natural instinct was to stare at mama with my big beautiful eyes and make endearing squeaky sounds to signal that I wanted her to lift me past the difficult sections. But this tactic didn’t work on my mama. She wanted me to learn how to handle myself in the mountains, so instead of coming to my rescue, she lured me to find another route in order to get past the difficult section.
Mama’s tactic worked, and now I’m proud to be quite the mountain-climbing Poodle. I put even the ‘real’ mountain dogs to shame with my impressive endurance and sporty style of getting past obstacles in the mountains.
The second-best thing in the French Alps, after the hiking paths, is the mountain huts. The French have built lovely guesthouses in the most unlikely places far into the mountains, many kilometers from the nearest road. In many of them, puppies like me are welcome.
