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Published: September 26th 2023
Monarch of the Alps
Mont Blanc towering above ChamonixFor the grand finale of my Alpine summer, there could only be one choice: the Tour du Mont Blanc. Stretching for around 170km (depending on which variants are followed) through three countries while circumnavigating the highest mountain in Western Europe, the route is one of the most famous multi-day walks in the world. Most people start and finish in the small town of Les Houches (7km down-valley from Chamonix) and take around 11 days, following the circuit anti-clockwise so as to finish along the Grand Balcon Sud - a high belvedere path following the northern flank of the Arve (Chamonix) Valley (through the mountains of the Aiguilles Rouge) offering endless views of needle-sharp peaks separated by the icy tongues of numerous glaciers, while heading straight towards the highest peak of them all. A wide array of accommodation is scattered along the route - which unlike each of the hut-to-hut hikes I've completed recently passes through numerous towns along the way - and it is even possible to camp all the way, though the majority of people spend at least a few nights in the various mountain huts.
Having chosen not to book any accommodation until a couple of weeks beforehand
Glacier-clad Peak
View of the Domes du Miage from Mont Truc - and having very little flexibility with dates due to the 90-day limit for foreign visitors within the Schengen 'border free' zone of Europe, which I was already 75 days into - I was facing the prospect of missing out on a number of the huts that I had most wanted to stay in, until I came up with the idea of starting in Tre-le-champ (11km up-valley from Chamonix) instead. A further complication was the fact that the AFL finals are held in September, and I was desperate not to miss any of the action - meaning that staying in mountain huts (which generally don't offer WiFi) was out of the question on game days. But I could get around that by starting the walk on the Sunday (immediately after the first weekend of finals was completed) and finishing it on the Thursday two weeks later (just before the third weekend of finals begins); and by spending the middle weekend (from Thursday night to Saturday night) at a campground - with WiFi of course - in Val Veni I could ensure that I would be able to watch the games live on the second weekend, and in doing so avoid
Balcony Path
Following the Grand Balcon Sud between La Flegere and Planpraz having to stay in the Italian resort town of Courmayeur with its dearth of budget accommodation.
Of course this would mean that I would have to bring all of my camping gear - ensuring that I would be lugging at least 15kg all the way around the mountain, despite having no intention of camping anywhere other than Val Veni - but as far as I was concerned that was a small price to pay! I could further manipulate my itinerary by doing both the first stage from Tre-le-champ to La Flegere and one of the middle stages from Lac Combal to Courmayeur as day-hikes (the former from Chamonix, the latter from Val Veni) allowing me to walk these sections with just my tiny daypack; and what the hell, as long as I was writing my own rules I might as well pour half-a-litre of whisky into one of my 'water bottles' (the word whisky coming from the Gaelic 'Uisce Beatha' - meaning 'Water of Life', after all) and lug that around the bloody mountain as well!
So with one of the more creative/ridiculous plans for the Tour du Mont Blanc now in place, I could concentrate on the
Cliff-hugging Trail
The climb from Planpraz to Col du Brevent task at hand of actually walking the route. Having already knocked off the Tre-le-champ to Le Flegere section a couple of days earlier, I was more than happy to take the cable car back up to La Flegere (800 metres above the valley, at 1875m) to pick up from where I had left off, at which point the Grand Balcon Sud immediately lived up to its name, offering a nonstop extravaganza of spectacular views across the deep valley of the Arve towards the summit of Mont Blanc and its countless 'aiguilles' (meaning 'needles' - which aptly describes the razor-sharp peaks that extend in a haphazard line to the northwest).
Stopping at Planpraz (the midway point on the Brevent cable car route) to fill up my water bottles, I then had to face the steep climb up the mountainside towards the Col du Brevent - though this would turn out to be one of the highlights of the day, as with each switchback gained the views only got better! In fact I ended up stopping so often to admire the panorama spread out before me that I never really had the chance to get tired. Eventually reaching the Col du
Brevent (2368m), the trail then led around the 'back' side of the Aiguilles Rouge away from the grassy hillsides and spectacular views of the Chamonix Valley, and into a constricted world dominated by slopes of bare rock. But any notion that this section might be any less interesting than the preceding one was dispelled just ten minutes later when I rounded a bend to be confronted by the startling sight of an adult ibex standing atop a low ridge just above the trail, its graceful form and scimitar-shaped horns perfectly silhouetted against the sky. Proceeding slowly so as not to frighten it off prematurely, I got within about twenty metres of it before it moved further along the crest, only for a young ibex to take its place, staring down at me with great curiosity and only a slight hint of fear! It was yet another unforgettable encounter in a summer that has been full of such moments.
From there it wasn't far up to the summit of Le Brevent (2526m), where the second stage of the cable car deposits visitors by the dozen. While I would usually shun such places, the views were outstanding and I was getting
Wildlife Wonders
Ibex above the trail in the Aiguilles Rouge particularly hungry, so that was my cue to drop the pack and indulge in a little plate of assorted desserts while kicking back on the outdoor terrace. No sooner had I begun the descent to my overnight stop at the Refuge de Bellachat than the sparkling green waters of Lac du Brevent appeared from below, and though it didn't lie on my intended route I immediately decided that I had to go for a swim in its sunlit waters before the day was out.
So after knocking off the incredibly scenic 370m descent to the Refuge de Bellachat in just under an hour, I claimed a sleeping spot in the lone dormitory, dropped my pack, and headed straight back outside to tackle the twenty minute side-trip to the lake. I wasn't disappointed! Lying in a shallow basin in the shadow of the Brevent peak, the lake was utterly gorgeous - and it wasn't long before I was flinging myself into the water for a most refreshing swim. And then just as I was lying back on a rocky slab sunning myself, while thinking "life doesn't get much better than this", I heard voices coming from a corner of the
lake that was hidden from view, and out of the shadows appeared a beautiful young woman wandering slowly along the lakeshore, sans clothing. I said a quiet prayer of thanks to the universe and committed the image to memory... knowing that I might need to call upon it in the coming days if the weather forecast proved to be accurate!
Ordinarily the Refuge de Bellachat would be the final hut encountered on the Tour du Mont Blanc - at least for those walking anti-clockwise from Les Houches - and would no doubt offer a fitting end to the walk, perched at 2152m directly opposite the soaring snow dome of Mont Blanc, with the bright lights of Chamonix squeezed into the deep trench of the Arve Valley more than a vertical kilometre below. But given that the hut would be closing for the season in just five days' time I was thankful to be spending my first night on the trail there instead. So stunning was the panorama from the hut's outdoor terrace that all of the guests elected to have their breakfast outside, so as to watch the sun emerge from behind the shoulder of the Aiguille Verte (4121m).
Breakfast with a View
Looking out at the summit dome of Mont Blanc from the outdoor terrace at Refuge de Bellachat But it wasn't long before everyone had gone their separate ways, which for many of us meant tackling the prolonged descent to the valley floor in Les Houches. It was here that my day took a peculiar and unexpected turn...
After grabbing some food from the supermarket and some cash from the nearest bank machine, I was approached by a young Dutch woman (a fellow hiker) asking if I had seen a phone lying around when I used the cash machine. She had withdrawn cash herself only ten minutes earlier and then realised when she returned to a nearby cafe that her phone was missing. When a quick check of the bank and the nearby tourist office turned up nothing, I offered to go back up to the supermarket where I'd found some WiFi and try to call her phone via WhatsApp. When I did a woman answered who spoke only French, but I suspected she was trying to tell me that she had found someone else's phone and was hoping I knew who it belonged to. I did, but of course I couldn't communicate that to her effectively, so I had no choice but to hang up and
Urban Interlude
The church in Les Houches, traditional starting point for the Tour du Mont Blanc find Loes (the Dutch girl) to let her know.
By the time I returned to the square where we had met she was nowhere to be seen, and it was a full ten minutes before I was able to find her to give her the news. Eventually we returned to the supermarket together, where Loes - whose French was very good - was able to establish that the woman in question had already left town (with her phone!) but was coming back in a couple of hours. So after a whirlwind 45 minutes spent racing around the centre of Les Houches, I eventually left Loes back at the cafe - where she planned to wait for the lady to return with her phone - with an assurance that if she got stuck at all I would be staying at the Refuge du Fioux (which she was planning to pass by that day) and to come and find me. I never did see or hear from her again - so I can only assume she got her phone back in the end!
With all of that drama out of the way, the remainder of the day was somewhat of
A Different Perspective
View over the Vallée de l'Arve from Col de Voza (1653m) an anticlimax - and an exhausting one at that - as the trail climbed steeply up from Les Houches at 1007m to the Col de Voza at 1657m. Two very sweaty hours later I finally emerged on the low grassy saddle - which I'd spotted that morning from the terrace at Refuge de Bellachat - before dropping equally steeply for a further fifteen minutes down the other side to reach the Refuge du Fioux. It was here that I met another Dutch woman named Ann who was also walking the Tour du Mont Blanc, and when I started to tell her the story of 'the Dutch girl who lost her phone' she replied "Oh, I met Loes in Les Houches as well, just as we were both about to start our hike - she was lovely but she seemed very chaotic!"
My third full day on the Tour du Mont Blanc brought a choice of onward route, with the first of many 'high variants' branching off from the main trail at the Col de Voza. Faced with a choice between heading straight down into the Val Montjoie and then following it up-valley toward the village of Les Contamines, or
Beauty All Around
Early views from the trail on day three re-tracing my footsteps to the Col de Voza and climbing a further five hundred metres to the Col de Tricot, the decision was easy - I would take the scenic route! This would turn out to be an inspired choice, as the trail first wound through beautiful woodlands before crossing the powerful outlet stream of the Glacier de Bionnassay on a 'Himalayan-style' suspension bridge, then climbing steeply to a broad meadow where the glacier was on full display, descending from the heights of the Aiguille de Bionnassay (4052m).
Turning back on itself, the trail reached the crest of a ridge offering a full 360° panorama, which it then followed uphill before finally dropping off the ridge and contouring across a grassy slope to the Col de Tricot at 2120m. After pausing to take in the views down into the hanging valley beneath the impressively glaciated Domes de Miage (3673m), I then plunged steeply downhill on a relentless series of switchbacks before arriving in the isolated outpost of Miage. But this offered only the briefest respite, for immediately the trail began to climb steeply up the other side of the valley, gaining almost 200 metres in under a kilometre. But
Colourful Trees and Rivers of Ice
The beautiful meadow beneath the Aiguille de Bionnassay (4052m) once at the top a strategically-placed bench seat allowed me to recover my breath under the watchful eyes of a herd of grazing cows; before I voluntarily added more elevation gain to my day with the short but steep side-trip to the peak of Mount Truc (1811m).
From there it was only a short stumble downhill to the serene Auberge de Truc, a farmhouse/restaurant with an al fresco dining area beside a pasture filled with cows and resounding to the familiar soundtrack of tinkling cowbells. I duly plonked myself down at a sunlit table and ordered myself an omelette for lunch - though it was my accompanying order of a 75cl bottle of local sparkling cider (a rarity indeed for me) that brought a concerned look from the young proprietress; and it's doubtful that my attempted reassurances (by simply repeating "Oui, Oui" in my best French accent) did much to alleviate those concerns, but eventually the bottle in question was procured, and as soon as the first drops of that effervescent golden liquid hit the back of my throat I knew I'd hit upon a winner - it was truly delicious!
Leaving the Auberge de Truc with an
Rustic Delights
Enjoying my fancy sparkling cider at the Auberge de Truc extra skip in my step, I had only to follow the trail downhill through pine-scented woodlands to reach the second of seven main valleys on the route - the Val Montjoie. And it was just as I arrived in the centre of Les Contamines - an easy hour after leaving the farmhouse - that the first drops of rain in twelve days started to fall, giving just a taste of what was to come the following day. After checking into the Chalet des Contamines (which, despite being run by the Club Alpin Francais as a traditional mountain hut, was located in the bed of the valley just across the river from the town centre) I settled back into a chair on the shady lawn to pass the rest of the afternoon drinking whisky, eating potato crisps and just generally enjoying doing nothing much at all! And with just nine guests there was a delightfully intimate atmosphere in the dining room that evening... though unfortunately the same couldn't be said for the dormitory later in the night, when I elected to sleep without earplugs due to my end of the room being populated entirely by women, only for one of them
Woodland Wanderings
The descent into the Val Montjoie to wake me up numerous times throughout the night by talking (loudly) in her sleep! Clearly I would need to consume more whisky - or cider - if I was to ensure an uninterrupted night's sleep in the future!
After being blessed with eleven straight days of sunshine followed by one cloudy day with just a short, light shower (an unprecedented run of good weather for such a high mountain environment, in my experience) day four on the Tour du Mont Blanc would finally bring a change for the worse - as forewarned by the Chalet des Contamines' guardian's decision to bring forward the serving time for breakfast! Foolishly I had left my travel towel hanging up outside overnight, meaning that the one day when I would be in need of a dry towel would be the one day I was caught without one! Life lessons, dictated by the mountains.
Leaving Les Contamines the rain was conspicuous by its absence, and as the tree-lined trail followed the Le Bonnant river upstream I wondered whether perhaps the day wouldn't be so bad after all... though clearly this was ignoring the fact that I had a 1300m climb to tackle
Divine Location
The church of Notre Dame de la Gorge with a full backpack! After enjoying a leisurely, almost-flat stroll for the first 3km to the small church of Notre Dame de la Gorge, the gradient then ramped up noticeably as the trail squeezed its way uphill through a narrow gorge, before breaking out into the open again in an upper section of the valley. Pressing on past the Refuge de la Balme at 1700m - where I stopped for my first and only break on the 1100m climb from church to pass - the trail continued to climb towards the cloud-wreathed peaks of the Aiguilles de la Pennaz, and it was soon after this that the first drops of rain started to fall.
Over the next hour that rain would grow in intensity so imperceptibly that I chose to ignore it, pressing on with grim determination despite being clad only in my now customary boardshorts and singlet. As the rain slowly strengthened and the temperature continued to drop it started to dawn on me just what dire conditions I was facing; but by this point there was no escaping the reality that until I reached my overnight stop at the Refuge de la Croix du Bonhomme, there was
Wreathed in Mist
Halfway through the climb to the Col de la Croix du Bonhomme simply no way I was going to be even remotely comfortable. And so, with legs strengthened by an entire summer's worth of hiking, and a resolve strengthened by the bleakness of my situation, I simply refused to stop until I made it to the hut. Reaching the first pass at the Col du Bonhomme (2330m) only three hours after leaving Les Contamines (1170m), I stopped just long enough to have a swig of water and (very much belatedly) don my rain jacket, before continuing for the final half-hour's uphill slog to the nearby Col de la Croix du Bonhomme at 2487m. From here I should have been able to clearly see the hut just 300m away and 40m below the pass, but so thick was the cloud and so heavy the rain it wasn't until I got within 50m that the shadowy outline of the sturdy, stone-built refuge finally emerged from the mist. And of course when I got there I had no way of drying myself properly, due to my towel failure from the night before...!
But at least my suffering for the day was over - and by 11:30am no less - whereas anyone else not staying
The Clouds Close In
Looking back down the Val Montjoie from just above Refuge de la Balme (1706m) at the hut faced a 900m descent to the village of Les Chapieux down in the Valle des Glaciers. This fact alone made up for the average food, cold rooms and fly-riddled dining room at the Refuge de la Croix du Bonhomme (the highest on the Tour du Mont Blanc, at 2443m), where despite the lack of ambient light due to the overcast weather the lights were never turned on; and the candles that were eventually delivered to the tables weren't distributed until it was almost pitch-black inside... nor did they ever make it to the table in the far corner that I had been assigned, along with an older American couple and four young American women! On the bright side however, I had neither snorers nor 'sleep-talkers' in my 6-bed dorm for the night - so I guess every cloud has a silver lining after all!
Against all odds the weather had miraculously cleared overnight, so that a clear sky greeted weary hikers on the morning of my fifth full day on the trail. Emerging from the refuge to a panorama that had been completely absent the day before, I had no hesitation in tackling the second of
What a Difference a Day Makes
Waking to an unexpectedly clear sky above the Refuge de la Croix du Bonhomme (2443m) the high-level variants, this time over the Col des Fours - which, along with another high variant later in the route, is the highest point on the Tour du Mont Blanc at 2665m. After cresting the pass, the contrast between the sunlit slopes backed by snow-capped mountains on the descent to the Valle des Glaciers (the third main valley on the route) with the inclement weather and non-existent views on the extended climb up the day before couldn't have been more stark, and as always in these situations it offered the necessary reassurance that even on the worst weather days there are inevitably better days ahead.
Upon reaching the valley bottom, the trail crossed the river and turned left to climb up the bed of the valley towards the Refuge des Mottets (1870m), from where it began a switch-backing ascent up the eastern flanks of the valley towards the distant Col de la Seigne. Rising ever higher, the views looking back down-valley got progressively better; though conversely the weather got progressively worse as I approached the pass and, beyond that, Italy. Carrying the frontier between France and Italy, the Col de la Seigne (2516m) was marked by a giant
A Sight for Sore Eyes
Descending into the Valle des Glaciers from the Col des Fours on day five cairn of rocks, a set of Tibetan prayer flags and a frigid wind that had me reaching for my rain jacket and gloves. Chased downhill by the worsening weather, I eventually emerged in the bed of the Vallon de la Lee Blanche - a typical glacially-carved valley flanked by steep slopes on either side, yet sporting an almost pancake-flat bottom that resembled a gigantic football field.
An hour below the pass I reached the Rifugio Elisabetta, where I met a Canadian with an endearing smile named Brent who, despite hailing from one of the most beautiful corners of the world (Vancouver, British Colombia), was completely enthralled by his surroundings. But while he had managed to secure a bed at the hut, I continued on down-valley to the photogenic Lac Combal, where another hut was located opposite the point where the Tour du Mont Blanc suddenly climbs steeply up the southern flank of the valley. I, however, had opted for the third of those two options, by continuing on downstream for a further hour-and-a-half - past where the river drops down through a narrow gorge to emerge in the lower Val Veni - in order to camp at one of
Lofty Perch
Rifugio Elisabetta, perched high above the Valle de la Lee Blanche three campgrounds located about 6km upstream from Courmayeur.
Pitching my tent for the first time since I left Slovakia two months ago - and leaving it up for three nights - I was able to leave my large backpack behind and tackle the next stage of the Tour du Mont Blanc with just my wee daypack; first heading back up to Lac Combal and then up and over a spur of Mount Favre to a high point of 2430m, before dropping down the other side to the busy tourist town of Courmayeur (the Italian equivalent of Chamonix). Unfortunately any views of the Monte Bianco massif looming ominously across the valley were largely obscured by a patchwork of low cloud that offered only the merest glimpses of rocky peaks projecting from the rivers of ice at their base; and the slow 'striptease' of the mountains belatedly shedding their clothes that I longed for never eventuated. But the narrow laneways of Dolonne (a village at the base of the mountains, opposite Courmayeur) held their own charm; while the gelato across the river was worth lining up for. But the highlight of my three nights in Val Veni was being invited to
Temporary Home
My tent site at Camping Aiguille Noire in Val Veni join the family who run the campground for cake and conversation on the second night, as the manager's eyes lit up when she learned that I was from Australia, prompting her to regale us with stories from her two-month trip Down Under twenty-odd years ago!
All that remained now was to hope for clearer weather for the resumption of my walk around the mountain in week two.
To be continued...
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