Recently shot some 120 film with a GW690ii on a special trip. I knew there were going to be some beautiful landscapes/colors and that I wanted to print some large to frame so I opted for the best quality scans I could get.

Specifically the lab I sent the film to offers
Small (6 MP)
Large (13 MP)
XL (30 MP)
XL + TIFF (8 dollars more than just XL)

XL + TIFF was a big added cost, almost $150 more, but I thought worth it as a treat and given my editing goals.

However, when I started editing both the JPEG and TIFFs I realized I wasn’t getting any more highlight/shadow/color detail.

When I dug into the file data here is what I found (in the windows photo properties info)- the TIFFs were much larger files and were uncompressed (as expected). However, both the JPEG and TIFF files both have a bit depth of 24.

I am by no means an expert on this stuff (hence why I’m asking) but doesn’t that mean the TIFF is 8 bits, 3 per color Chanel?

Does that mean the lab just saved the JPEG image as a TIFF file or am I misreading it somehow? Would you reach out to the lab if they were your images?

Edit: the lab uses a Noritsu HS1800

TLDR; Did TMB in 7 days. Here is itinerary, gear list, training workouts, and thoughts.

Stays
Nant Borrant
Refugio Mottets 
Maison La Saxe (Coureyer)
Gîte de la Fouly 
Gite bon Abri 
Chalet Alpin de la Tour
Heliopic (Chamonix) 

Variants
Col de Tricot
Col des Fours
Mont De La Saxe Ridge
(Planned to do Arpette but aborted, explanation below)

We both work busy jobs and had one week/weekend to travel and hike. We hiked straight off of our plane/transfer shuttle on our first day. We had a 75 minute layover in Zurich (actually 40 minutes because of delay) even with customs we had no issue making the connection. We did all planning/bookings ourselves and used TrailEasy for planning (more on that below).

DAYS

Day 1 - Les Houches to Nant Borrant
Landed in Geneva at 8:30, took mountain drop off shuttle to Bellevue cable car. Bathroom break, got water, applied sunscreen, and rode the cable car up. We started the hike at about 11:30 from the top, arrived at Nant Borrant around 6pm. This was one of my favorite days, the views are incredible. Hiking straight after traveling was rough but doable. Did the cul de tricot variant. Nant Borrant was an incredible stay, absolutely get there before dinner if you can to hang out in the beautiful courtyard. Dorm room with 6 other people, no issues, meals were maybe the best of the trip. 

12.2 miles, 3500ft up, 4690 down

Day 2: Nant Borrant to Refugio Mottets
Started 8/8:30, took the cul de fours variant. There’s not much food options between the two so we took a packed lunch from nant borrant which was well worth it. Arrived at Mottets around 4:30, glad we did because again there is a super fun patio to have a beer and relax on. 
Mottets we did a private room which was very nice with a bathroom, toilet, and sink. The dinner was good but not my favorite of the trip. Friendly service and plenty of clothes line space. 

11.3 miles, 4640 up, 3400 down

Day 3 - Refugio Mottets to Maison La Saxe 
We left Mottets at 8am, stopped at Elisabetta and Cabane du Combal. Got to elisabetta before lunch service but they still sold premade ham and cheese sandwiched and coffee. Best coffee of the trip. Cabane du Combal was an excellent beer stop before an ascent. This was a long day and we took the gondola down into Courameyer which I would highly recommend. From there it was about a mile to Maison La Saxe. Maison La Saxe was excellent, well worth the cost, delicious breakfast, great room, fantastic service. We ate at Brasserie La Sapinière. It wasn’t the most memorable meal of the trip but the fondue was tasty and it was close by. If we had more time to explore we may have gone somewhere else. 

15 miles, 4300 up, 4700 down

Day 4 - Maison La Saxe to Gite de la Fouly 
Holy shit was this a day. We were unable to book any stays between these two spots and had already booked the following days (anyone who booked this year knows just how much of a mad dash it was on opening day). We debated between valley bus, normal route, and high ridge variant for months. We ultimately decided to do the high ridge variant which added some elevation and distance but with the benefit of great views. People tout this high ridge variant as the best views of the trip, although I would argue the previous day, several miles before the descent into Courmayeur, was probably as good or maybe even better. Biggest advice if you have to do this beast of a day is to start early (maybe 5am) we started at 7am and made great time but still didn’t get into La Fouly until 8pm. Gite de la Fouly was a wonderful stay. They treat you like family here, the private room is nice, quiet, and cool. Wonderful dinner. Recommend.

23.6 miles, 8700 up, 7500 down

Day 5 - Gite de la Fouly to Gite Bon Abri
 
We were licking out wounds from the previous day (right foot extensor tendonitis for me, prepatellar bursitis for my partner.) This day was essential for our recovery and ability to finish out the rest of the week. We left later around 9am and had a relatively easy 10 miles, mostly a gradual downhill and then a smaller climb up to Champex-Lac. We took the day very slow with lots of breaks and had a great time enjoying the views of the lake with a spritz at Le Cabanon. We stopped at the tea shop in town and they had the best blueberry tart I’ve ever had. We got to Bon Abri early at about 4pm and enjoyed the patio and an early shower.
 
Gite Bon  Abri was okay/good. The pros: friendly service, good vibe, clean. No crazy views but that’s okay. We had a private room which had plenty of space and a nice bathroom. Unfortunately the beds were terrible, there was a 1-2” thick foam mattress that absolutely wrecked our backs. The stay was otherwise good (maybe 7 or 8/10) but I have to knock it down to 6/10 overall due to the beds.
 
11.0 miles, 1900 up, 2400 down
 
Day 6 - Gite bon Abri to Chalet Alpin le Tour
 
This day felt longer than it was due to our lingering booboos but it had some big highlights. It was relatively well shaded for the first half which kept us safe from the heat. 2 big ascents on this day – both with rewards waiting at the top, the first via the bovine route with ** at the peak with delicious pies, their savory food is $$$ so consider bringing a sandwich to complement the cakes and fuel the second half of the day. The second climb is the real deal, 2.5k feet up to Col de balme. We opted not to do the Arpette variant due to the technicality, we figured the added distance outweighed the footwork required for the variant given the risk for worsening our ankles/knees. In hindsight probably a good choice. I highly recommend doing the ridge route to the right when descending after col de balme, it does add another 500 feet up, but the views were some of the best of the trip.
 
Chalet Alpin le Tour was our stay for the evening. First the pros – good bar with a variety of beer, wine, and cocktail options and breakfast was tasty with a slightly wider array of options from other stays. Dinner was only, and the portions were a bit on the smaller side (family style but not really enough for the table). The staff were nice. The bathrooms and dorms were quite bad. The bathrooms were very dirty. The dorm had one outlet for 6 people, the bed was very uncomfortable, and the airflow was horrible even with the window open so we were much too hot to sleep all night. Overall a 3/10 compared to our other stays, would only book again if required.

17.8 miles, 6100 up, 6000 down

Day 7- Chalet Alpin le Tour to Heliopic
 
This day started with a climb which likely only felt as bad as it did due to accumulated fatigue AND our low water supply. Be warned there is no water source from Le Tour until 0.5-1 mile after the ladder section, this area was exposed and hot and I regretted not starting from Le Tour with 2-3L of H20. The ladders are a lot of fun, we decided not to go up to the Lac afterwards and I don’t really regret it. Theres a beautiful waterfall on the lower section where we filled up our bottles with a beautiful view. We debated taking the gondola down and decided we wanted to finish it out on our feet. In hindsight we probably should have just taken the gondola down, the trail down is kind of boring. But the feeling of finishing into town was amazing!
 
Heliopic was a wonderful stay, by far our most expensive but if you’re looking to splurge it's well worth it in my opinion, it was an excellent home base for our 24 hour recovery in Chamonix. We ate at Mumma, Moody Brew Coffee, Bighorn Bistro, and several of the farmers market stalls downtown on the weekend. Very fun to walk around and if we had extra days to spend I would have done it either here or Courameyer.
 
We did Mountain drop off back to the GVA airport the following day at 5pm, stayed at IBIS budget hotel, and flew out the next morning. 

Brief thoughts: If you’re ever wondering should I do this trip, the answer is yes. Understand that the distance/amount of days you do it in has a significant impact on how fit you will need to be - I get into more details below but understand most anyone could do this in 11-12 days, but I would say 8 days or less demands more attention to training. I think it is more difficult (if doing it in fewer days) than people say on reddit - this is coming from someone who has done through hikes, marathons, ironmans, etc. 

Training

We spent about 5 months training for the trip. Training volume was limited by work and life + we were both starting from a relatively untrained state so we opted for a longer runway with 5 months. There were 3 main training objectives. 1 - increase metabolic health/VO2 max training. 2 - lower body strength. 3 - adapting to significant incline volumes. Increased training volume by about 10% per week to avoid injury. You may think this training is overkill, but the goal was to make each workout as efficient/effective as possible and in hindsight it was an appropriate amount for 7 days. Workouts consisted of stairstepper, treadmill with incline, running, biking.

Stairstepper - started with 10-15 minutes on stairstepper and worked out way to about 1.5 hour sessions. (often doubled as Zone 2)
Treadmill with incline - started at about 3-6% incline for several miles and worked up to 20-25% incline over time, varied incline and distances. (often doubled as Zone 2)
Running - Zone 4 and threshold interval workouts to target VO2 max
Biking - Zone 2 workouts

General Philosophy - tried to do 1-2 Z4 workouts a week and another 3 workouts of some mix of stairstepper, treadmill, and biking. IMPORTANT - I think heavy incline treadmill is essential because it helps with achilles adaptation - you are not exerting the same forces when on a stairstepper, think about your ankle angle. 

Gear

We read many reviews on here regarding gear and it paid off. We used almost everything in our packs and our gear performed well. The biggest asterisk I will add to gear is that YOU KNOW YOURSELF. For example I am chronically hot - I never (not once) wore anything except a t-shirt on the trial. Not in the mornings, not at altitude, never. For me this was great, for others it would not be. Trusting your knowledge of your own preferences will help you. Only things I never used were the gloves, rain jacket/pants (lucky!), and different pole tips. 

One other comment - BRING that one thing you’re anxious about. For me it was a medium format film camera (5lbs). Packing light is great, and we did, but don’t sacrifice that which you love. Draw some inspiration from the JFK quote - “Do not pray for easy lives, pray to be stronger” I have no disclosures, affiliate links, etc. 

Sorry, I tried to link a lot of things and Reddit got angry with me. 404 = had for a while and can’t recall brand or doesn’t matter

Clothes
Underwear x 3 (kuhl)
Hiking Shirts x 3 (2 x kuhl, 1 x underarmor blend)
Hut Shirt (longsleeve Kuhl Komander)
Long Underwear for hut (404)
Jackrabbit gloves (404)
Hiking Socks x 3 (darn tough micro crew)
Hut/travel socks (1 pair bombas)
Shorts x 3 (2x random thin nike shorts, 1 x outdoor voices)
Pants x 1 (Fjalraven Abisko Lite)
Rain Jacket (404, REI, possibly XC)
Rain Pants (404, ebay used Heli Hansen)
Baseball hat
Trail Runners (Altra Experience Wild 2)
Birkenstocks
*Did not bring the PG fleece pictured*

Nutrition/Meds
Electrolytes x 7 (LMNT)
Stroop x 4 (Honey stinger)
Carb Bars x 7 (BPN GO bars)
Nut Bars x 2 (Kirkland Nut bar)
Meds: Ibuprofen, Tizanidine, Pepto Bismol, Imodium, Benadryl, Abx ointment, tape

Miscelaneous
Lifestraw (1 L collapsable)
Platypus (1 L collapsible)
Headlamp (Infinity X1 from costco no longer sold)
Towel (Sea to summit large)
Sleep liner (Sea to summit silk rectangular)
Sleep mask (Manta)
String and clothespins
Sunscreen
Bugspray wipes
Universal adaptor
Phone/watch charger
Portable changer (404)
Watch (Fenix 6s Garmin)
Mesh bag/toothbrush/squeeze bottles (facewash, conditioner, shampoo)
Airpods
Osprey Bag 
Poles (Costco hiking poles)
Heart Rate Monitor
Glasses (brought clip on sunglasses)

Camera
Fuji GW690ii
20 rolls of assorted 120 film
Tiffen polarizing filter
Lens Cap
Slide lite peak design strap
Peak design packing cube

Gear Standouts: 
- Osprey Bag: probably the biggest bag you can fit on US and euro domestic flights, the poles fit into the bag when deconstructed. 
-Clothespins: SUPER helpful on several occasions
-Shirts and shoes: both worked tremendously

Trail Easy App

We used this to plan our routes for each day and I highly recommend it. There were a couple quirks that we learned to work around on the site, but the owner is very receptive to feedback and it's an excellent resource. It was free when we used it but in hindsight it would even be worth a small fee. The standout feature is downloading your GPX files for the day and then adding them to a garmin watch. This was the single MOST helpful thing we did. I can make a guide on how to do this if folks want. 

Please ask me any questions.