Fascinating as Hanger 2173 was, it was time to get out and take a look around the botanic gardens and the rest area to be found at the Pavillon du Mont Fréty. There are 3 reasons to spend a bit of time here.

The first is to acclimatise yourself to the thinner atmosphere. After all, you have gone from an altitude of 1,300m (4,265') to 2,173m (7,129') in 4 minutes. This isn't quite as extreme as it sounds; after all a standard light aircraft could easily get to 3,000 feet after take-off within the same number of minutes. Older jet aircraft like the 767 would use internal pressures roughly equivalent to an altitude of 7000 feet, and most passengers don't even notice. Newer aircraft like the A380 aspire to a lower altitude equivalent pressure, but unless you're in really, really bad shape 7,000 feet shouldn't kill you; in fact it shouldn't make you feel much of anything at all.

The second is to just take in the view. True, you aren't all the way up the top yet, but as we'll see in some photos in this set you get some pretty nice views. I suspect that the one that I'm looking at here would probably be more appealing had there been more snow on those rocks, but even without it there is, to plagiarise Buzz Aldrin, "magnificent desolation" in the mountains.

The third is to explore the alpine botanic gardens, though I suspect that we aren't here at the best time for that. Most of the flowers would probably be in bloom in the summer, which we just missed, and would be at their most fragrant at that time as well.

If you feel so inclined, a fourth reason would be to catch a bit of sun, I suppose, given the presence of so many deckchairs pointed in its direction.

The name "Saussurea" in the name comes from Horace-Bénédict de Saussure (1740-1799), a Swiss scientist and polymath from Geneva. Both the English and Italian Wikipedia entries for the gardens claim that he made the first known ascent of Mont Blanc in 1786, but that seems to be wrong; he organised a prize for the first ascent, which was made in August 1786 by Jacques Balmat and Michel Paccard. Nonetheless, he had much to do with research into the nature of this area of the world.