Valleys of mountain joy: the Tour du Mont Blanc from France to Italy

This is the first of four posts describing our trek around the Tour du Mont Blanc in September, a classic 170km circuit of Western Europe’s highest mountain. The story begins in Chamonix as we walk the western section through France.

A few years ago I wrote a blog post called ‘What’s next’ in the hope that it would stop people asking the mountaineer’s most frequently asked question (spoiler: it’s all about the journey, not the destination).

It may have worked, because I don’t get asked that question so much any more (or perhaps they just think – with some justification – that I’m clearly past my peak). However, there’s another question I’m sometimes asked by people I haven’t seen for a while that’s equally difficult to answer.

‘Have you got any more big adventures planned?’

The correct answer (‘no’, usually grunted) brings an abrupt end to the conversation, which means that I end up having to improvise something more satisfactory.

In a bid to stop people asking (or at least those of you who read this blog), I’m going to explain how Edita and I chose our international holiday this year.

In July, we were sitting at the kitchen table eating larks’ tongue in aspic (we weren’t really, but I threw this in for fans of 70s prog rock) when I looked up and said the following:

‘My boss was asking if I’m thinking of taking any holiday this year. I said we might take a couple of weeks off in September.’

‘Sure, where shall we go?’ Edita said.

Last year Edita and I trekked the GR20, a mountainous long-distance trail along the spine of Corsica. We arranged it through an agency called The Natural Adventure, who booked our accommodation, arranged luggage transfers and provided us with a map and route description for navigation (a style of trip known in the travel industry as ‘self-guided’).

The terrain on the GR20 was tough, with high passes and scrambling most days. Often there were no clear trails as we followed paint marks across boulder fields. On the final day I nearly died. Accommodation was mixed; some nights we camped, others we stayed in mountain huts with dormitories; on three nights we stayed in hotels. But days were short. We usually arrived in camp soon after lunch and spent the afternoon relaxing.

Using an agency can save hours of time in planning for those of us who lead busy lives, but pre-arranged itineraries tend to favour those who prefer shorter days. We enjoyed the style, but Edita in particular found it a bit too easy.

‘We could do another self-guided walk somewhere in Europe?’ I said.

‘Sure.’

I picked up my phone and scrolled through the website of The Natural Adventure. As most adventure travel companies do, their site has an advanced search filter, allowing you to filter trips by date, location, toughness, engine size and activity type (no, not engine size, that’s AutoTrader).

‘It looks like they only have two treks classed as “strenuous”,’ I said a few minutes later. ‘One is the GR20 and the other is the Tour du Mont Blanc.’

‘Let’s do the Tour du Mont Blanc then.’

‘OK. It looks like they have two versions of the trip, one staying in refuges and the other staying in hotels. The prices are similar.’

‘Let’s do the hotel one, so that you don’t get woken up by people who don’t like your snoring.’

‘Good idea,’ I grunted.

And that was that.

As you can see, it can’t really be described as a ‘plan’. Comparatively speaking – set against some of the things we’ve done in the past – I wouldn’t exactly describe it as a ‘big adventure’ either. The word ‘holiday’ will do.

‘Have you got any more big adventures planned?’

‘Er… nope… but thanks for reminding me… ask me a couple of weeks before we leave… let me see what’s available… big adventure? I’ve forgotten what those are…’

There are many answers; none of them satisfactory. This is how we choose most of our trips these days.

Anyway, the Tour du Mont Blanc. That’s exciting. I hadn’t been to Chamonix for 19 years, ever since the second of my abortive attempts to climb Mont Blanc. Having been all over the Himalayas, Andes and other great mountain ranges further afield, it’s time for me to start exploring the mountains of Europe a bit more.

I no longer have any great craving to climb Mont Blanc. Edita has done it already. Nor do I feel the urge to tick off other alpine 4,000ers, which would involve squeezing into mountain huts then getting up in the middle of the night to crunch up glaciers in the dark.

But having a nice breakfast and walking across high passes in glorious sunshine is still very appealing. The Tour du Mont Blanc would give me plenty of that: a 170km circuit of Western Europe’s highest mountain and its surrounding peaks, with over 10,000m of ascent across 14 passes. In the course of the journey we would cross from France into Italy, from Italy into Switzerland, and from Switzerland back into France, never far from civilisation with each country providing a slightly different vibe, while at the same time basking in the finest mountain scenery that Europe has to offer.

We knew, however, that we had chosen one of the busiest long-distance trails in Europe (like we had last year with the GR20). It’s a true classic, but one that everybody knows about. To soften this blow, we decided to go in the second half of September, when the trekking season would be winding down. Nevertheless, there were still plenty of people and I couldn’t imagine how busy it must be in the high season.

The traditional starting point for the Tour du Mont Blanc (or TMB as it’s known on signposts) is the village of Les Houches, a short 8km taxi ride from Chamonix. It is, however, possible to start from Chamonix itself by means of an immediate 1,000m ascent up a zigzag path to join the trail across the Massif des Aiguilles Rouges on the northern side of the Chamonix Valley. There is also an easier way: by hopping on a cable car up to Planpraz. You may not be surprised to learn which one we took.

One thing I did differently from last year was to buy the Cicerone guidebook to the Tour du Mont Blanc and read it. After a treacherous descent of sloping slabs last year, I discovered something that should have been obvious; namely, that buying a guidebook and not reading it because you’re too lazy to carry it in your pack, isn’t much use.

It was a shock to discover how cold Chamonix is in September. The town lies at an altitude of 1,000m in a deep valley. We spent the first day of our trip shivering about town in three layers of clothing as we did some last minute shopping. Grey clouds hung over Mont Blanc and intermittent icy rains lashed against us from time to time. Looking up at 2,525m Le Brévent, we could see a dusting of snow hanging in couloirs among the dark rock.

Le Brévent, a famous Mont Blanc viewpoint, would be the first peak of our TMB. It was probably climbed frequently by shepherds and chamois hunters throughout its history, but its first known ascent was by a 20-year-old Horace Bénédict de Saussure and his guide Pierre Simon in 1760. A scientist and tourist rather than a climber, Saussure was an instrumental figure in the early history of mountaineering on Mont Blanc. He offered the prize that led to its first ascent by Michel-Gabriel Paccard and Jacques Balmat in 1786, and climbed the mountain himself with Balmat a year later. There is now a statue of Saussure and Balmat in Place Balmat, Chamonix, the latter pointing towards the summit, and one of Paccard a few metres behind.

There is now a cable car to its summit which was completed in 1930. It’s normally just an easy walk-up. Looking at its snow-clad top, we thought about buying microspikes; but the forecast was better for the next six days and it seemed likely that the snow would melt again, so we decided against it.

Day 1 – Chamonix to Les Houches

We were in no rush to start the following morning. The cable car up to Planpraz didn’t open until 8.30 and we knew that we only had about five hours of walking that day. We stopped to take photos at Saussure’s statue and spent about 20 minutes in a charcuterie getting some splendid cheese and prosciutto baguettes made up for the trail. The weather was better that day with no rain, but it was still cold. Although the summit of Mont Blanc was clear, there were clouds high above it, giving the sky a grey shroud.

The town was quiet as we wandered slowly up the hill to catch the cable car. As our tiny capsule rose above Chamonix, my eyes were focused on the town as it diminished beneath us, and Mont Blanc as more of its foothills came into view. Meanwhile, Edita was looking below us and she noticed hikers going up a zigzag path in the cleared forest immediately beneath the cable. I had measured this route on the OS app and estimated that it would take three hours to ascend the 1,000m to Planpraz that way.

I took an interest in this trail though. We knew that the cable car would be closed for the season when we returned in 10 days, so we might have to descend this path. It seemed OK, if a little monotonous. But as we approached the buildings at Planpraz, the terrain steepened and the trail leapt up rocks with stretches of chain for support.

A second section of cable continued all the way to the summit of Le Brévent, but we got off to start our TMB at Planpraz at an altitude of 2,000m. It was 9.30 when we started walking. The slopes above Planpraz were badly scarred by ski lifts and empty tourist buildings. There was an ugly track up to Le Brévent, but the TMB diverted right on a rising traverse towards 2,368m Col du Brévent, our first high pass.

There was more snow than we had expected, in some places a fresh layer a few inches deep. Happily, the trails were not icy, but a cold wind gave the walk a wintry feel, a rude contrast to our sweltering traverse of the GR20 in Corsica last year. We had the trail to ourselves for the most part. It took us about an hour to reach the col – which wasn’t really a true pass and was marked only by a large cairn – and another 45 minutes to Le Brévent. This section had the most alpine feel of the day as we crossed a pair of stony hollows on a trail that was completely submerged by snow. We needed to look for yellow paint marks on the rocks in places where there were only a few footprints to follow.

As the path steepened, there was a short section of via ferrata consisting of two short ladders and about 20m of chain handrail. We rejoined the tourist trail just beneath the summit of Le Brévent. At 11.30 we joined the crowds of people queuing to have their photos taken on the summit viewing platform just above the cable car station. It felt like the summit of Snowdon, though the view was a bit grander across the deep Chamonix Valley to the forbidding rocky aiguilles and the gentler slopes of Mont Blanc itself. The sky was overcast and the summit was clear, but the mountain slopes were barely distinguishable from the clouds that framed them.

For the next hour we had an enjoyable descent of a broad ridge on a path that crossed grippy jagged boulders. It was much quieter than Le Brévent, but there were still many people going in both directions, including a bewildering number of trail runners foolishly spoiling a good walk by going quicker than they needed to.

We reached Refuge Bellachat (2,158m) at 12.30, where a man was sweeping melted snow off a decidedly soggy deck. Below this, the trail descended a steep gully and the snow petered out. We stopped to eat our sumptuous sandwiches at a place where the trail flattened slightly before entering the forest. We looked across the valley to Aiguille du Midi, still miles above us. I tried to make out the cable car, but it was impossible to make out its tiny features against such a vast black precipice. It certainly seemed an implausible location for a giant funfair ride.

We had about two more hours of walking after lunch. A high Himalayan-style trail traversed the hillside for a few hundred metres. Then it entered the pine forest and plunged down down down, alternating between steep zigzags and short traverses. The only break from the forest came when we crossed another gully with more handrails and metal steps in the form of shoe-sized ledges nailed to the rock.

The remainder of the descent through forest was unrelenting. We passed the high fences of a mountain zoo, crossed a road at the zoo car park and continued downwards. Towards the bottom we reached a small clearing where a giant concrete slab rose above a tiny platform. It was supposed to be a 20m statue of Jesus, but it was no Christ the Redeemer towering over Rio de Janeiro. Where the latter is draped in a simple shawl and has its arms spread wide to embrace the people below, this one was dressed in a king’s robe and had its right arm raised in a manner that I couldn’t help feeling resembled a Nazi salute. Thankfully the statue is tucked away in forest and you barely notice it from down below unless you know where to look.

We finally emerged from forest beside the train station at Les Houches. The sun was out now, but we hadn’t really noticed it beneath the forest canopy. The rocky pyramid of Aiguille du Goûter rose directly above the village like a mini-Everest. The summit of Mont Blanc was hidden behind.

We reached the Hotel Le Saint-Antoine at 3pm. We were on half-board that evening and had to choose our three courses on arrival. Our room was only just big enough for two people plus kit, but the hotel restaurant was lively. Edita was less happy with her gazpacho soup and pasta than I was with my salade Savoyarde and chicken, but the half pichet of vin rouge went down well.

Day 2 – Les Houches to Les Contamines

We left the hotel at 8.15 and had a long walk through the village. The forecast was for sunny weather, so we were disappointed to set out under a cold grey sky which hid all mountains from view. It was our second day, but we paused for photos under the archway that marks the official start of the TMB.

The route description from our tour company said to get the cable car from Les Houches to Bellevue (1,801m) to avoid a long climb up to Col de Voza, the first and only pass of the day. The GPX file they provided for navigation even had a large section of the route missing. This seemed strange, given that one of the attractions of the TMB is its high passes. I had been happy to catch the cable car to join the route yesterday, as this was no different from getting a taxi to the start. But I wasn’t going to catch one that chopped out one of the main sections of trail. That was definitely cheating. The Cicerone guidebook described this option in the third person (‘many trekkers’ take it), reverting to the second person for the actual description.

We walked through a road tunnel and reached the start of the ascent at 9am, where the main trail mounted steps behind someone’s private driveway. We followed a zigzag road containing smart private chalets, occasionally taking shortcuts to shave off a bend. At the top of the road there was a chairlift up to a ski resort, though it wasn’t running at this time of year. The TMB continued on what appeared to be a dirt track through forest. Only when it steepened considerably did I realise that we were actually walking up a ski run – one more reason why hiking the TMB in winter is not recommended.

The cloud burned off and the sun burst through. Between trees to our left we could see Aiguille du Goûter (3,863m) and Aiguille de Bionnassay (4,052m). The former now looked more like the rocky end of a ridge than a peak in its own right, while the latter was more striking, a sheer snow face shaped like a shark’s fin. We passed some more restaurants that were closed for the summer as the track emerged from the forest and the view opened out.

We reached Col de Voza (1,657m) a few minutes later. It was more like a high plateau in the form of a broad ridge than a mountain pass. There was a large hotel surrounded by fields of cows who clanked their noisy cowbells like tuneless campanologists. More surprisingly, there was also a railway station. Col de Voza is one of the stops on the Mont Blanc Tramway, which links the town of Saint-Gervais-les-Bains with Nid d’Aigle (‘The Eagle’s Nest’). Perched at 2,372m on the Bionnassay glacier, Nid d’Aigle is the place where climbers start their ascents of Mont Blanc via the Goûter Route. From Col de Voza station, the tramway continued up the ridge we were standing on, past the Bellevue cable car station to its final destination high above.

The ridge to Bellevue is also the route taken by an alternative high trail variant that rises high to cross the 2,120m Col de Tricot before descending to Les Contamines from another direction. This route is two hours longer than the main trail. It was only our second day; we were still gauging the accuracy of timings on the app and guidebook and we had two much longer days ahead of us.

We had agreed to take the easier main route last night, which descends to the valley through forest. But faced with the day’s high point at only 10.30 in the morning, Edita was disappointed when I took the trail down the other side of the ridge. We had a heated discussion while we descended, and after about 100m I was starting to feel like a bit of a pansy (as Thesiger said to Newby). I stopped and offered to go back up again, but once your manhood’s been found wanting, you can’t change things by waving it around.

‘If you want to do the easy route then we’ll do the easy route,’ Edita said.

For the next two hours the trail descended through quaint, bucolic villages straight out of a children’s story – Bionnassay, Le Champel and La Villette – undulating on forest trails through narrow river valleys. The map was peppered with towns and villages, but the setting was decidedly rural.

From La Villette onwards we enjoyed fine views up the pastoral (and delightfully named) Val Montjoie, the jolly valley of mountain joy, flanked in pine forests with hamlets spread out between green fields. The jagged alpine peak of Aiguilles de la Pennaz (2,683m) rose at the far end, while the gentler, jovially named Mont Joly (2,525m) overlooked the valley from the west.

We stopped at 12.30 for a half-hour lunch on a grassy knoll in the sunshine above the village of Tresso. The last hour of the day followed a trail through forest beside the river. A sign directed us up a steep trail to the left and we emerged into the village-cum-town of Les Contamines. We wandered down the main street and arrived at the delightful Hotel Le Christiania at 2pm.

We were pleased to be given a more substantial room here with an extra sofa bed and plenty of space for bags. Best of all, there was a long balcony with a fine view up the valley to Aiguilles de la Pennaz. A snowy plateau that topped the ridge behind our hotel looked deceptively like Mont Blanc, but we figured that it was probably the Dômes de Miage (3,673m), which blocked the higher peak from view.

The sky was clear and the sun was bright, so we had an opportunity to wash clothes and dry them in the sun. The resident black and white cat took an interest and kept coming in and out of our room.

Day 3 – Les Contamines to Ville des Glaciers

I left the hotel with regrets at 8.15, believing that we were unlikely to stay in a nicer place all trek. The first 45 minutes of the day was pleasant and easy, on a flat trail through woodland beside the river. Civilisation was ever present along this stretch, including a large bar/restaurant called Biche (which Edita, who speaks French, assured me was pronounced ‘Beesh’) and a pleasant boating lake.

The section ended at a little church called Notre Dame de la Gorge, where a large JCB digger did the Lord’s work in the front driveway as it ploughed its noisy furrow. It was 9am and a signpost said four hours to Col du Bonhomme. the first of three high passes. Here the TMB started its steep climb through forest on a stony track that serviced two refuges higher up the trail. It seemed incredible that vehicles could drive up it, but twice we were overtaken by pickup trucks carrying boxes of supplies.

We climbed steadily, soon passing the first refuge, the decidedly Welsh-sounding Nant Borrant. After about 500m of ascent we emerged from forest into a long hanging valley. The trail stretched a mile before us in the form of a farm track leading to the second hut, Refuge de la Balme, which nestled at 1,706m beneath the steep crags of Aiguilles de la Pennaz.

We passed the refuge at 10.45, well ahead of schedule. The trail rose steeply again at the head of the Val Montjoie. It crossed another broad plateau before climbing again. We were now among crowds of people. I saw a huge group of about 50 walking in a line. This turned out to be three large groups leapfrogging one another. We overtook each one in turn when they stopped to rest, but the last group followed close behind us all the way up to the col. Their guide appeared to have one lung for walking and one for talking. His endless soliloquy tripped at my heels, causing me to quicken my pace.

I could feel myself running out of energy as we arrived at the Col du Bonhomme (2,329m) at midday, an hour ahead of schedule. It was windy and exposed, but the sky was bright; when we moved around the corner and found a sheltered grassy patch to stop for a snack, it was quite pleasant.

On the other side of the pass was a treeless valley surrounded by moderate peaks. The snow of two days earlier was already melting and the slopes were now only dusted lightly. The path beyond did not descend into this valley, though; instead it contoured around the hillside to the left, rising slightly to the next pass Col de la Croix du Bonhomme (2,479m). The group with the garrulous guide passed us as we ate. We watched them ascend gingerly through an icy section of trail where the snow had been compacted beneath tramping feet.

There are few things better for restoring flagging energy than a large baguette crammed with prosciutto ham and delicious French cheese. On the GR20 last year we nibbled ravenously at measly cold rice dishes that our tour operator insisted on providing for lunch. We suffered no such pointless discomfort on the TMB.

Suitably refreshed, we raced up the next section. Although the path was icy in places, there was always a dry route through on grippy rocks. The trail mostly traversed on a contour, rising only slightly over boulders beside a stream bed. We reached Col de la Croix du Bonhomme, the second pass, at 1pm. We stopped to exchange ‘summit’ photos with an American couple about our age. They were heading down for lunch at the hut we could see nestling just beneath the col. But we had bigger plans.

We left the main route to follow a variant route up to our third high pass of the day, Col des Fours. Recent snow made the trail hard to follow. We were entering bleaker country now, on gravelly terrain above the grassland. A biting wind added to the feeling of forlornness.

Everything changed when we reached the snow-choked Col des Fours. At 2,665m this is the joint highest point on the TMB (if you include all its variant trails), but we were about to go higher still. A large slanting slab above the col provided shelter from the wind as we stopped for a second lunch in the sun. We gazed up at the best view we’d had of the summit of Mont Blanc since Le Brévent. On the other side of Col des Fours we could see across the following day’s pass, Col de la Seigne, into Italy.

It was still only 1.30 and we had four hours to descend into the Vallée des Glaciers, where a taxi was due to pick us up from a place called Ville des Glaciers to take us to our evening’s accommodation. We could see the tiny hamlet in the valley far beneath us. It would only take 1½ hours to get down, though the descent route looked like it might be treacherous below the lip of Col des Fours. We watched a young couple in running shoes edge their way down there. For some reason they put their poles away as they tip-toed through the snow, making the job slightly harder.

We had our thoughts elsewhere. The Cicerone guidebook recommended a short diversion up to the 2,756m summit of Tête Nord des Fours for a magnificent 360° panorama. We could see its gentle snow dome a short distance away. We finished our sandwiches and headed up there. The route involved scrambling over slabs initially, but ended in a gentle summit slope.

It was a fantastic viewpoint. The ice-topped summit of Mont Blanc dominated the view along the ridge to our east, but we could also see the whole of our ascent route up the Val Montjoie. There were many other high peaks visible all around. A plane table on top described them all, but there was no sign of the summit of the Matterhorn that our guidebook promised.

We raced back down. The melting snow on the other side of Col des Fours posed no difficulty for us as we ran past other groups, reaching the grasslands and gentler slopes in no time. We reached Ville des Glaciers at 4pm, well before our taxi was due to arrive.

Ville des Glaciers turned out to consist of a couple of old farm buildings and a car park. The only glaciers were miles above. ‘Town of Glaciers’ may seem like a silly name for two shacks surrounded by fields, but I don’t believe St Peter ever visited St Petersburg. In fact, the verdant Vallée des Glaciers is named after the Aiguille des Glaciers (3,816m) at its head, rather than its proximity to flowing ice.

Edita was unable to get phone reception to call the taxi, but the driver happened to be waiting there for another 4 o’clock group. He correctly guessed that we must be his 5.30 pick up arriving early. To save us from hanging out with cows in this lonely spot, he agreed to drive us three miles down the road to Les Chapieux to wait while he dropped off his other group.

Les Chapieux is the usual endpoint for day 2 of the TMB, and is where we would have ended up had we continued down the main route from Col de la Croix du Bonhomme past the refuge, instead of taking the high-level variant up to Col des Fours. It was a more civilised location on a large plain at the confluence of two rivers, and close to the main Route des Grandes Alpes tourist road across the mountains. The main resort had one very short main street with accommodation, and on the grassy plains outside were camping spots and car parks.

We sat in the garden of a hostel drinking beer and coffee while we waited for the driver to return, and chatted to the American couple we had exchanged photos with up at the col. We could hear the occasional vehicle roaring across a shoulder of hillside somewhere above us.

We experienced some culture shock that evening. When our driver returned at 5.15, he took us down into a forested gorge on a winding road of sharp hairpins. We descended from 1,550m at the isolated community of Les Chapieux to 800m in the small provincial town of Bourg-Saint-Maurice, itself wedged between mountains in a deep valley. Despite its grand setting it was no tourist town. Modern buildings faced each other across wide, grid-patterned streets. We stayed in the Hotel Arolla, a tiny family-run hotel with no restaurant. On a Monday night, we could find only one place to eat, a small pizza restaurant in what appeared to be a sleepy central business district. But a bed’s a bed, and we had made ours when we decided to book the hotel version of the trip.

Day 4, part 1 – Ville des Glaciers to Col de la Seigne

At 8.30 the following morning, our taxi driver returned to take us back up the winding forest road to Les Chapieux. From there, he continued right up through the gorge to Ville des Glaciers. Backpacked hikers strode up a tarmacked road wedged between steep hillsides, and it seemed a fairly boring section of trail.

By the time we reached Ville des Glaciers, the valley had widened considerably. It felt like farming country. The trail started as a farm track; we passed a feeding trough. But the cone of Aiguille des Glaciers dominated the view at the top of the valley, wearing an apron of snow like a bridal gown. Up to our left we could see Col des Fours that we crossed yesterday with a distinctive sloping slab of rock to its left.

There were many people on the trail and we gradually overtook them. After half an hour of walking we reached Refuge de Mottet, a converted cowshed nestling in the bottom of the valley. Here the trail rose steeply in zigzags as it began its ascent to Col de la Seigne. After a few hairpins, we overtook the last of the big groups and had the trail to ourselves. The trail contoured high on a hillside. The approach to the pass was a wide track through a gently sloping grassy field.

We reached Col de la Seigne (2,516m), the border between France and Italy, at 10.45. The pass was a giant plateau, carpeted in scree, cowering beneath the south ridge of Aiguille des Glaciers and the stupidly named Glacier des Glaciers (which I believe is twinned with Loch Lochy in the Scottish Highlands).

Our day was just beginning, but it did indeed feel like we were crossing a frontier, a natural milestone on our route. We were leaving behind the pastoral Vallée des Glaciers for the more alpine Val Veny. Somewhere to the left, Mont Blanc hid behind a veil of cloud, but needles of rock guarded its base. In front of us, Val Veny appeared to go on for ever, down and down into the far distance where high peaks, including the snow-capped Grand Combin, formed a wall across the far horizon.

There were dozens of people at the top. An American couple offered to take a photo of us. We accepted. Then another American couple asked us to take one of them. We could have spent the afternoon taking photos of strangers and having ours taken in return, but I was keen to press on into Italy, a country that conjured fond memories, that I hadn’t visited since the pre-covid era.

We stepped forwards into a new country.

The story continues in part 2, as we walk the Italian section to the Swiss border at Grand Col Ferret.

To view all photos from our trek, see my Tour du Mont Blanc Flickr album.