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By Colby Farrow
Tour du Mont Blanc - July 2024
A combination of wilderness and luxury, our version of the Tour du Mont Blanc did not disappoint. With rest days in Courmayeur, Champex, and Chamonix, we were able to explore the local area and cuisine. Our hike took us through beautiful valleys, over many cols, across three national borders, over many streams and snow bridges, and past refuges, dairy farms and waterfalls. While rain dampened some days, most were full of sunshine and moderate temperatures, providing amazing views of the Mont Blanc Massif.
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Day 1 - Les Houches to Les Contamines
Our earliest start of the trek, we were anxious to catch the bus at 6:40AM in Chamonix to head to the TMB starting point in Les Houches. We were thankful this first section was rated as one of the easiest, and with a cable car to avoid the initial 3.8 miles of trail with 2,200ft ascent, this first day was going to be a great warm up.
Things didn't go as planned. We arrived at the Bellevue Cable Car station just after opening time, along with many other hikers, and were told that due to a widespread power outage, the cable car was not in service. After a half-hour wait, the workers announced the cable car would be out of service until at least 1PM.
We put on our packs and took off to hike the uphill section we'd hope to avoid. At least we had some refuges to look forward to!
After a few hours and some passing rain showers, we arrived to a refuge to notice it was closed. A little further down the trail we came to another, again, closed. The power outage was affecting the entire area, leaving us without lunch or dry shelter to take a rest break.
A few hours later (around mile 11 for the day), we arrived in Les Contamines with a ravenous appetite. Restaurants were everywhere and fairly crowded, so we walked into one and were told they just stopped serving food! After a tour of the restaurants on main street, we learned that all the restaurants in town typically don't serve food between 2PM and 7PM, and we had arrived in town just after 2.
Luckily a grocery was in the middle of town, so we purchased some food, made baguette, ham & raclette sandwiches on the curb accompanied by some superb chocolate mousse, then walked the last mile to our hotel for the evening.
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Day 2 - Les Contamines to Les Chapieux
The morning started out wet with light rain showers and gloomy skies, but quickly parted way to a beautiful day for hiking. The first 1.5 miles was a quick, flat hike alongside the road to Norte Dame De La Gorge, and then the trail began its continuous climb for the next 6.5 miles, with us gaining 4,200 feet on the ascent.
About 2.5 hours into our trek, Refuge De La Balme provided the perfect rest stop prior to our ascent over Col De Bonhomme. We snacked on a giant cookie, raspberry tart, and coffee while overlooking the valley we had just hiked through.
We continued up a steep but beautiful section of trail, full of waterfalls, stream crossings, mountain views, and snowfields. Continuing up the steep, stair-like trail, we reached the Col and threw on our jackets as the wind suddenly picked up and the temperature dropped.
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After the Col, the trail continued to climb slightly across a long traverse with steep snow fields to Col de la Croix du Bonhomme. We donned our microspikes for the first few sections and pushed forward to the next Col where we planned to stop for another food and rest break at the refuge. Aubri enjoyed a petite beer & some veggie pizza cooked over a woodfire, while Colby enjoyed a brownie! We were impressed by the cozy refuge which operates without electricity or running water, but still has flush toilets (via foot pump) in the outhouses!
The final section was a steep descent to Les Chapieux, where we dropped about 3,000 feet over 3.5 miles. This section was gorgeous with many stream crossings and snow bridges to navigate! Leaving the snow behind, this valley was verdant and covered in waterfalls with sweeping views of high mountains ahead and the sound of cow bells below. Once to Les Chapieux, we hopped on a bus to Bourg-Saint-Maurice to reach our hotel for the evening. Although a long and challenging day, this was Aubri's favorite hike of the trek!
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Day 3 - La Ville des Glaciers to La Visaille
After catching an early morning shuttle in Bourg-Saint-Maurice, we skipped the valley walk between Les Chapieux and La Ville Des Glaciers. We had no planned Refuge stops until after our climb over Col De La Seigne, so we pushed ahead knowing our lunch break wouldn't happen until early afternoon. We stopped often on the ascent to turn around and admire the view back down the valley.
Reaching the Col, we were rewarded with the sights of many Aigulles. This also was our first border crossing, where we crossed from France into the Aosta Valley region of Italy. It was an amazing feeling to walk across the border from one country into the next! From here, the trail now descended quickly across a few snow patches, snow bridges, and stream crossings. All of the snowmelt provided constant views of waterfalls everywhere we looked.
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Reaching Rifugio Elisabetta, we relaxed on the expansive deck while enjoying an Italian lunch of pasta, tiramisu, and espresso. From here, we continued our descent down a beautiful wildflower-filled valley to Combal. The final section of trail down a steep, paved road from Combal to La Visaille looked easy on the map, but after extensive downhill hiking & hot, sunny weather conditions, we were not feeling well the final 1.5 miles down a steep, paved road toLa Visaille where a bus would take us into Courmayeur.
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Day 4 - Arp Nouvaz to Ferret
We enjoyed a rest day in Courmayeur with a trip up the mountain to Pointe Helbronner. We enjoyed the BEST hot chocolate (in Aubri's opinion) here!
The next morning, a massive bus from Courmayeur to Arp Nouvaz, our starting point for the day, was packed shoulder to shoulder, resulting in us standing on a very long, 1-hour bus winding ride through the valley. When we arrived to the final bus stop, everyone was very anxious to get off even though there was moderate rain falling.
It didn't take long for the rain to clear out while we made our way to Refuge Helene. This was the start of the steep climb for the day, so we stopped at the refuge and enjoyed the BEST hot chocolate in the world (in Colby's opinion)!
We continued our climb to Grand Col Ferret, which is the border of Italy & Switzerland! Just on the other side of the Col were some more steep patches of snow, so we put the microspikes on and headed down.
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The landscape was markedly different, with lush green slopes and tall waterfalls on the Swiss side. Continuing down the gentle descent, we arrived at a dairy farm that is also a refuge, La Peule. We stopped for some beverages and raclette (made fresh on the farm!), then made our way to Ferret to catch a bus to our hotel in Champex.
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Day 5 - Fenetre d'Arpette
Our original plan was to take a rest day in Champex Lac, but with an ominous weather forecast for the following day (when we planned to hike from Champex to Trient), we decided to get a hike in instead and rest on the bad-weather day. We considered completing the Champex to Trient section on this new rest day instead, but we couldn't work it out logistically from a transportation standpoint.
Instead, we decided to hike up a TMB variant towards Fenetre D'arpette. We had been advised to not attempt this variant as the high altitude section of the pass was still too dangerous this early in the season without winter gear (crampons and ice axes). We did not plan to cross the pass, but to hike to the point where it became too icy and turn back to town from there.
It was a beautiful hike with more amazing scenery and best of all, no crowds of other hikers. We only saw 3 other hikers (carrying full mountaineering gear) on this section! On our way back to town we stopped in Arpette where we enjoyed "iced coffee". Once back in town, we enjoyed taking a pedal boat out on the lake in Champex! That evening, we had the best pizza of the trip in Switzerland at a small hotel in Champex and had to try the alpine specialty - fondue!
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Day 6 - Trient to Argentiere
After spending a rest day exploring Chateau Chillon in Montreux, we got back on the trail for a 10.5 mile section. Starting in Trient, we hiked up a heavily forested section of trail, switch-backing up the mountain.
The climb culminated at Col De Balme, which was also our final border crossing as we made it back into France from Switzerland. A busy refuge sat atop the Col and provided us with more coffee, lemonade, and baked goods.
The trail dropped for a mile or so and then climbed to the top of Aiguillette Des Posettes. The hike up and down from this peak followed a ridge-line, providing some of the best views on the TMB, as well as gorgeous wildflowers!
When we reached Tre-le-champ, where the TMB crosses the road, we had hoped to take a bus into Argentiere and avoid the almost 2 mile hike to our hotel in town, but after waiting for an hour (and 20 minutes past the scheduled bus time), no bus ever arrived, so we dispiritedly hiked another 45 minutes to our hotel.
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Day 7 - Montroc to Planpraz
Our final day on the TMB! I had been disappointed we'd not seen any Ibex on the entire hike so far, but today made up for it. We spotted a massive Ibex a couple miles into the hike, then many more throughout the day.
Just like every other day, the hike started out with a steep ascent - so steep that many ladders and steps were built into the trail. We enjoyed climbing the ladders!
Again we had perfect weather, so we took lots of photos along the hike. We took the variant toLac Blanc, a picture perfect lake and refuge overlooking the Chamonix valley and providing grand views of Mont Blanc. This was the highlight of our day!
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We enjoyed hotdogs at the refuge, which were delicious and very reasonably priced (much less than at a sporting event in the US even though all the food and supplies for refuge must be flown in by helicopter!). After our Lac Blanc lunch, we hiked down a very crowded trail to the refuge at La Flegere to enjoy one last break on the TMB before the last few miles to Planpraz. Our journey ended with us completing the most elevation gain in a single day, 4,400 feet over 10 miles. We rewarded ourselves with a comfortable ride down a cable car back to where we started more than a week ago - Chamonix.
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