tour du mont blanc

[Nick Garcia]

Planning a trip 1st week of July to do Tour du Mont Blanc, planning on 5 days, any tips or suggestions? Doing some of the pre trip research, thanks

[Nick Garcia]

[Roger Caffin]

Beware of La Balme!
It used to be run by a mad woman who was a bit miserly on the blankets and ultra-miserly on the food. ONE wrapped pat of butter and ONE little jam packet for breakfast. We were early to breakfast and did not know the system, so we ate our fill – leaving nothing for the ones who came late. Much fuss! Everyone else thought it was quite funny.

In fact, you could not even enter the Refuge unless you were a paying customer. The place used to be notorious for all this – many comments in different blogs. It is possible that she has retired or left by now – I don’t know.

Also, the old woman would not permit anyone to fill their water bottles from her supply. I don’t know why. I quietly cheated and filled a few peoples’ bottles as we were staying the night there and could enter, but I had to use a wash-basin tap to do it surreptitiously.

The other places on the circuit are mostly good, except for Refuge Elena on the S(?) side. It was expensive and poor on food quantity as well. A bit too ‘tourist’.

Cheers

[Donna C]

I did it a few years ago. Here is what I learned:

1. Book ahead, show your reservations in hand for proof.
2.  Bring a phone and get international package, or use T Mobile. Getting weather reports is invaluable.
3. Breakfast sucks at most refugios. One place just had black coffee and stale bread.
4. Stock up on your own snacks
5. Get ready for a sudden snow storm/ice/wind/rain.
6. Don’t get lost by following cow paths that look like the trail. Many did.
7. Courmeyer is a wonderful town. They have outdoor stores but geared more towards extreme trail runners.
8. The bus in Chamonix is free. But a few of the drivers like to harass hikers. One yelled at me for bringing hiking poles, which i had folded and in my side pocket. One guy turned off the info map so I couldn’t tell where I was to get off. Luckily I knew. It pissed him off.
9. The hikers you meet along the way are great.
10. It is alpine hiking. Nothing compares.
11. It is drop dead beautiful there. Have a fantastic trip!

 

 

[Nick Garcia]

Thanks

[Roger Caffin]

Breakfast sucks at most refugios. One place just had black coffee and stale bread.
In something like 6 – 8 months of wandering through the European Alps and staying in Refuges, I don’t think we met this more than 2 or 3 times. We even saw a helicopter reaching a very high Refuge in a storm just to bring in a a large bag of loaves of bread and some other supplies (for OUR meals). I have no idea what the cost of the chopper resupply was, but we were not limited at breakfast.

Cheers

[Cameron M]

This is apparently a low snow year, so the earlier you can go, you will see more snow and less people. I went decades ago but I hear that it can now become a real highway. As with most routes I recall “variantes” to the main trail. Sometime they are easier escape paths for people to avoid strenuous parts, but more often they offer more altitude, may be more direct, and better views. Any more difficult variation is usually the way to go. Oh, and if you stay in a refuge, take earplugs!

[Hydro Man]

Seems like a pretty fast pace for the 100+ miles, but doable.  It is mountain terrain though.  We went in Sept and didn’t book anything ahead and it worked out fine but not sure if we got lucky or not.  Folks are mentioning the La Balme hut.  I think we tried to stay there and had a super weird interaction with the lady and the place was empty and it seemed like she was trying to charge us some exorbitant rate to stay.  We ended up hiking all the way into the swiss village below instead, very late in the day.  Was a great stay though, but sad to loose all the elevation and have to get back up the next day.

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