Here we are, Regina, Paul, Emily and Linda, at the Portland airport, waiting for a flight to Geneva. We're on our way to hike the Tour du Mont Blanc (TMB), a multi-day trip around the mountain and its neighboring peaks, called the Mont Blanc massif.

The TMB is one of three Alpine hikes that we will tackle. The others being the Dolomites and the Haute Route.

The TMB passes through France, Italy, and Switzerland. We chose to start in Chamonix, but there are many places one could choose. The hike typically takes about a week. What makes this multi-day hike especially attractive is that one need not carry camping equipment nor any food, beyond water and lunch. We stayed at an Alpine refuge each night, basically a small private hotel with cafe. The Alps, it turns out, are heavily sprinkled with these refuges. The refuges vary in comfort but each offers meals and a bed for the night. Most offer warm water. Privacy, cuisine, and aesthetics vary. Some feature little more than a room of bunk beds, others rent whole private rooms.

Since this is a photo-centric blog, I'll briefly talk cameras, but just this once. The camera that accompanied me on the TMB was a Canon PowerShot S1 IS, a digital point and shoot with a long zoom and an appetite for batteries. This was my first digital. Verdict? Pretty good. I enjoyed the auto ISO; the instant review; and the seemingly-infinite storage. Picture quality was more than good enough. If only it went a bit farther on a charge.

Ahh, but my appetite for tech marched on. I replaced the Canon with a series of Nikons: D70 (used in Peru), D200 (Dolomites), D300 (Haute Route), D800E. Plus, of course, I bought a few Nikon lenses. This required learning aperture, speed, iso, metering mode, raw vs. jpg, and white balance. I found Nikons to be lovely, and sturdy: I dropped the D300 whilst riding a ferry in the Bosporus. It hit hard and then slid across the deck. I felt like an idiot. Yet the camera and lens—the brilliant 17-55/2.8—came away unscathed.

And then the Nikons were pushed aside by the more pack-able and retro Fujis. Plus, of course, Fuji lenses.

And now, the Fujis compete for my attention with the the uber-packable but un-ergonomic iPhone. The Apple photos are more than satisfactory but the photo-taking experience leaves me feeling like I have returned to a point & shoot.

Well, back to the hike.