I didn’t start hiking until my late 20s. It had something to do with growing up in the tropics; if the jungle insects and reptiles don’t get to you first, the humidity will. Fast forward a few decades and now I’m an avid hiker with a lot of lost time to make up for. Which leads me to my most recent trek: the Tour du Mont Blanc (TMB). At a distance of about 105 miles, this iconic trail circumnavigates the Mont Blanc massif, western Europe’s highest peak, and takes you through three countries: France, Italy and Switzerland. Over the course of fourteen days (2 were rest days) in September, my friend and I walked through spectacular landscapes, experienced all types of weather, made new friends, and created memories that I will always cherish.
This post covers the topics below. For a detailed run-through, skip forward to the next page.
TMB Table of Contents
When to Go
We deliberately chose to go near the end of the season to avoid summer hiking crowds. The main trade-off was more variable weather; we encountered everything from overcast skies to pouring rain, snow, and bluebird days. It added to the experience; there’s something magical about hiking through falling snowflakes, and we certainly appreciated the clear skies more. More importantly, it was worth it to have many sections of the trail to ourselves for long stretches before we passed or caught up to someone else.
Route Planning and Accommodations
The trek officially starts and ends in Les Houches, France. There is the official route and a few variants. We took one variant because of where we found lodging. The others we chose based on weather and the possibility of seeing an amazing vista. Since it’s a loop, you can hike in either direction, but most people, including us, hike counterclockwise.
Planning started in February, seven months in advance. We hashed it out over a weekend, booking all our accommodation using the Tour du Mont Blanc reservation website. It’s easy to use, once you get the hang of it. You enter your starting date and point, and the site will show what’s available along the way and how far away it is. Not all possible lodging options are shown on the site. Some hotels and refuges must be booked outside of that system. I used Google to supplement my search.
An advantage to booking even earlier than when we did is being able to pick exactly where you want stay along the route. For example, while it would have been optimal to consistently put in about 10 miles every day, we ended up with a few really short days, and some longer ones, because of where we found a room. There was also one area where all available lodging was booked so the tentative plan was to camp. Not ideal because it would mean bringing our tent for one night which seemed inefficient.
Another reason to plan early is to have first pick of bed/room type. We stayed in everything from mountain huts to inns to hotels. Getting a bed in a dorm is the most common and affordable option, but some places did offer private rooms. While it would have been nice to have our own room where possible, many of those were already taken. Most nights we were in bunk beds in rooms with anywhere from 2 to 30+ other people. When we did have a private room, unless it explicitly indicated a private bathroom, we still had to share toilet and shower facilities with everyone else.
Our Final Itinerary
As June approached, I reconfirmed our reservations and continued to check with mountain huts that had turned us down to see if there had been cancellations. Fortunately, space opened up in an inn near where we were tentatively planning to camp. Wohoo! We could leave the tent behind.
We actually encountered many people on the tour who had booked their trip from two weeks to one month before they started. It goes to show that it pays to be flexible, and more importantly, to keep following up with the different huts, inns and hotels up until the last minute. Because so many people book their tour a year in advance, there’s a high likelihood that people need to change their plans and cancel.
After all was said and done, including last minute changes once we started, our two weeks of hiking looked like this:
- Day 1 – Les Houches to Refuge de Miage (Saint Gervais les Bains) via Bellevue cable car (Col de Tricot variant)
- Day 2 – Refuge de Miage to Refuge de la Balme (Les Contamines)
- Day 3 – Refuge de la Balme to Refuge des Mottets (Bourg Saint Maurice) with side trip to Tête Nord des Fours (Col des Fours variant)
- Day 4 – Refuge des Mottets to Rifugio Elisabetta (Val Veni)
- Day 5 – Rifugio Elisabetta to Courmayeur
- Day 6 – Rest day Courmayeur
- Day 7 – Rest day Chalet Val Ferret (Val Ferret). Day hike to Rifugio Bonatti
- Day 8 – Chalet Val Ferret to Gîte Alpage de La Peule (Ferret)
- Day 9 – Gîte Alpage de La Peule to Auberge des Glaciers (La Fouly)
- Day 10 – Auberge des Glaciers to Gîte Bon Abri (Champex)
- Day 11 – Gîte Bon Abri to Auberge du Mont-Blanc (Trient)
- Day 12 – Auberge du Mont-Blanc to Auberge Le Boerne (Tré Le Champ)
- Day 13 – Auberge Le Boerne to Refuge de la Flégère (Chamonix)
- Day 14 – Refuge de la Flégère to Les Houches
To read about life on the trail, skip to a page below. It’s a long post so each page covers 3 days of hiking (except for our last day).
- Page 2: Days 1 – 3, Les Houches to Refuge de Miage (Saint Gervais les Bains) to Refuge de la Balme (Les Contamines) to Refuge des Mottets (Bourg Saint Maurice)
- Page 3: Days 4 – 6, Refuge des Mottets (Bourg Saint Maurice) to Rifugio Elisabetta (Val Veni) to Courmayeur
- Page 4: Days 7 – 9, Courmayeur to Chalet Val Ferret (Val Ferret) to Gîte Alpage de La Peule (Ferret) to Auberge des Glaciers (La Fouly)
- Page 5: Days 10 – 12, Auberge des Glaciers (La Fouly) to Gîte Bon Abri (Champex) to Auberge du Mont-Blanc (Trient) to Auberge Le Boerne (Tré Le Champ)
- Page 6: Days 13 – 14, Auberge Le Boerne (Tré Le Champ) to Refuge de la Flégère (Chamonix) to Les Houches
What to Bring
Aside from determining where we would be sleeping each night, deciding what to carry took some careful planning and consideration. Our goal was to keep it light but without completely sacrificing creature comforts. Since we no longer had to worry about the weight of a tent and all the gear needed to sleep comfortably outside, we had more leeway.
I ended buying a new pack, something in between my daypack (18L) and my backpacking bag (70L), and settled for a 44L Gregory that held everything plus had a bit of room leftover for food we’d buy along the way. My pack weight, excluding water, came in around 23 pounds. I could have gone lighter by bringing fewer clothes, ditching the power bank and eliminating some toiletries, but otherwise, I ended up using everything I brought.
To bring snacks or not. I debated this because I knew we would be passing small towns and villages with supermarkets or bakeries. However, it’s always comforting to have the familiar so I brought apricots (1 pound) and peanut butter filled pretzels (1 pound). There were days when I cursed myself for lugging them around, but they came in handy, especially when we arrived early at the huts, and I was hungry and had to wait a few hours before dinner.
In addition to clothes, toiletries and snacks, I brought the following: my rain jacket and pants, a puffer jacket, warm gloves and wool hat, hat, sunglasses, sleeping bag liner, waterproof slippers (for lounging and showering), emergency kit and medications, headlamp, power adapter and charging cord, noise-canceling earphones (indispensable in shared rooms), camp towel, electrolytes and trekking poles. While the trail is well-signed, I appreciated having my copy of the Tour du Mont Blanc guidebook by Jim Manthorpe, as well as my fully-charged Kindle. Both came in handy during downtime at the huts.
There is no need to bring a sleeping bag (unless you are camping). All the accommodations we stayed at provided blankets, and we were plenty warm.
Food on the TMB
We paid for the half-board option so our dinners and breakfasts were always included. One of the consistent things we found is that all the places we stayed at offered hearty dinners, but rather meager breakfasts (I think even meager by European standards).
Dinners were always multi-course, starting with either soup or salad, some cheese and bread, and then a really hearty main dish of carbohydrate (rice or potatoes) and protein in the form of eggs, cheese or lentils. We only had meat three times. I personally think this is a tough trek to have dietary restrictions other than being vegetarian. If you are lactose intolerant or vegan, there’s probably a lot you won’t be able to eat.
Breakfasts were the hardest to adapt to. I’m used to filling up to get my day going. On the TMB, do not come expecting a huge spread of cheeses, cold cuts, breads and baked goods, fruit and yogurt. We often had cereal and/or toast, and maybe some fruit. Some places served cheese or yogurt, but it was actually quite common to have no protein, not even an egg. If breakfast is your thing, this can factor into what snacks to bring with you from home, or how much extra money to carry so you can supplement your meals with a visit to a bakery if there happens to be one along the way.
While many accommodations offered a packed lunch option, we only did it once. Otherwise, we always found a restaurant or refuge along the way where we could stop. It was much easier to buy lunch rather than carry the extra weight. It also gave us the opportunity to introduce more variety into our meals. Dinners were always family-style and very carb heavy. A few places offered meat, but otherwise, mostly vegetarian (not vegan). Get used to lots of cheese, potatoes and bread.
Money on the TMB
I used both cash and credit. Some huts only take cash, others accept both. If you forget to bring your credit card, you can use Apple Pay instead. The payment form is noted in the confirmation email the lodging sends to you.
There are ATMs in the bigger towns like Les Houches, Les Contamines, Courmayeur, La Fouly and Champex so you don’t need to withdraw your cash all at once.
In Retrospect
Our hike was definitely on the longer side, but we also weren’t in a hurry. While we could have easily shaved 2 to 3 days from our itinerary and put in more miles per day, what I liked about our pacing is that on most days we were able to arrive at the refuges on the early side, take our pick of bunk bed, and be first in line for the shower. It was great avoiding the crowds in the bathrooms. We also had more time to hang out, chat with fellow hikers and relax before dinner. Also, under normal circumstances, our two rest days split between Courmayeur and Val Ferret could have been shortened to one, but it actually worked out for us because my friend got sick. Fortuitously, the extra time allowed her to rest and recover without requiring us to re-plan the second half of the trip.
It’s hard to believe that for some people, the TMB is their weekend hiking/running playground. As we approached larger towns, the number of hikers, runners and bikers out on the trail increased, and it was inspiring to see people of all ages tackling the rocky and steep terrain. I also loved the camaraderie. It didn’t matter where we were from or how many hikes we had done, or how fast we were walking, all that mattered in the end was our shared experience. Everyone was genuinely happy and friendly, and we had so much fun meeting people from around the world. The mountain culture of the Alps is amazing and extremely civilized; I can definitely see myself coming back.
Bottom Line
- It’s never too late to plan your trip. Many people plan a year in advance in order to have their pick of accommodation along the route, but if you’re flexible and not tied to sleeping in specific huts, you’ll likely find last minute availability due to cancellations.
- You can make the route as short/long and easy/hard as you like. There is an official route with variants in certain sections, and because there are so many lodging options along the way, you determine how many miles you want to hike everyday.
- Unplug and meet your fellow trekkers. There was no TV any place we stayed and WiFi was hit or miss. We all hiked at our own speeds, but because many of us were traveling in the same direction, we found ourselves meeting up with the same group of people at the end of each day. We had a lot of fun hanging out, comparing notes, and talking about where we had traveled to and plans for future trips.
- Have an open mind. Everyday of our hike brought something different. Different weather. Different terrain. Food and lodging that may not be what you are used to or expecting. What was consistent, however, was the stunning beauty of the mountains and valleys, and friendliness of the people we met along the way.
- Enjoy the views and appreciate the journey.
