It was devilishly hot for days on end with no air conditioning for relief. France’s heat wave broke with a day hike in rain that afforded us opportunity to layer up with all the woolens and waterproof gear we’d been lugging all along. Biggest takeaway of the whole endeavor is what you might have predicted from the start: we can do hard things.
Somehow, after the first day of windedness, exhausted legs, and whining about whose idea was this anyway, we developed a groove. Ascend all morning, eat some grub, marvel at scenery, and descend all afternoon. There was a comforting predictability to knowing what tomorrow was gonna be like: every day’s itinerary was predetermined. Our work, to put one foot in front of the other. I didn’t have many grand thoughts or realizations. Mostly my internal monologue was: I’m hot. I’m thirsty. Where’s the shade. Wow, nice view. But, there were just enough moments of overflowing pride that my kids were doing this thing, and pulling their own weight the whole way. Just enough moments of enjoying conversation with my fellow sojourners. And every day I ate something guiltlessly delicious.
There were so many unknowns with this adventure, and it all worked out marvelously. I’m detailing our itinerary for those of you who may want to do the TMB yourselves someday.
Logistics
We used The Alpine Adventures to book all our lodging on the trek. It was a mix of hotel rooms and bunk rooms big enough for the four of us. I have no complaints about the places we stayed. They were all clean, comfortable, and friendly. And Alex, the founder, was straightforward and pleasant to work with throughout.
Arrival and orientation
Overnight flight to Geneva meant arriving on a hot afternoon with time to dunk sweaty bodies in Lake Geneva’s cool, clear waters. The neighborhood we stayed in (near the train station and Lake) had a high density of international cuisine. It was a great settling-in spot (Novotel Geneve).
Next morning FlixBus to Chamonix-Sud station. Chamonix Valley in France is a bunch of villages situated in the valley between the Mont Blanc massif on the south (with Italy on the other side) and the Aiguilles Rouges (“Red Needles”) to the north.
The TMB trek itself actually circumnavigates the Mont Blanc massif up and down the mountain ranges encircling it. While hiking, you are usually able to gaze at the snow-capped ranges and glaciers across a valley from your own high vantage point. Chamonix Valley is a cluster of ski resort towns with multiple cable cars and chairlifts scattered on both sides of the valley. These are extremely helpful for shortcutting steep ascents or descents, but they make hiking in and around them and their ski-landscaped mountainsides less pristine and appealing than elsewhere on the trek.
There are lots of ways to splice and dice the TMB, but classically it is done in 11 stages hiked counter-clockwise from Les Houches, the southernmost village in the Chamonix Valley to a “midpoint” in Courmayeur, the Italian ski resort counterpart on the other side of the 11-km-long tunnel through Mont Blanc itself, to the green hills of Switzerland in the east, until returning once again to France at the northern end of the Chamonix Valley. In fact, this is the itinerary that maps closely to the one outlined in Cicerone’s seminal book describing the TMB trail and to the itinerary outlined for us by The Alpine Adventures.
From the Chamonix-Sud bus terminal, we hopped a few paces away to take the Bus 1 (tap to pay on board) toward Les Houches at the southern end of the valley. We spent two nights at RockyPop, an art deco-inspired hotel with super nifty restaurant in the rear and the only air conditioning we found on the whole trip. RockyPop is comfortable and amenity-filled (fizzy water on tap!), but it’s neither near the restaurants and sporting goods shops of Chamonix nor the arched banner start of TMB at the Les Houches tourism office. Shuttling back and forth on Bus 1 was doable but required tracking the bus schedule closely.
We met up with some dear friends also celebrating milestone birthdays in the Alps for gelato and spritz in Chamonix’s pedestrian shopping core. Tickets for the Aiguille du Modi cable car promising an unrivaled viewpoint of Mont Blanc sold out even as we tried to purchase them. Lesson learned, we pounced on tickets for the cogwheel train and gondola ride to Mer de Glace, a tunneled walkway within a glacier. It was splendidly cool and comfortable inside the ice cave. Capped the night off with excellent gazpacho at Panier 4 Saisons before sprinting for the bus back to RockyPop.
Stage 1: Les Houches—> Les Contamines
Stage 1 began with breakfast at RockyPop, packed lunches (not great), and short bus to Les Houches TMB start arch. Our group assembled for a photo and then hiked onward. The day takes you through the outskirts of Les Houches up a whole mess of hills before twining down and up forested ravines and finishing alongside the Bon-Nant river into the small village of Les Contamines (meaning “ploughable land” not “contaminated” as I thought for much of the 12 miles hiking there). It was very hot and our first day. We weathered a lot of complaining and dismal spirits, and I still remember the utter exhaustion at reaching the town and realizing we still had 15 more minutes of walking through town to reach our lodging (Hotel Chalet Nant Rouge). I was aghast and affronted to have to walk back to town after showering to get supper. I was convinced additional walking was out of the question. But the idea of hiking the next day without the bright spot of dinner in between dispirited me even more. We trudged through the rain that evening to Carnotzet, which remained a cherished dining memory for the rest of the trip. Superb mountain views and scrumptious vegetarian-friendly food for us all. (NB: while only one of us is a vegetarian, we generally prefer vegetable-focused food, which is counter to the meat- and cheese-laden Savoie fare.)
Stage 2: Les Contamines—> Les Chapieux
Stage 2 left Les Contamines climbing a steep, steep hill (surprise!) before reaching the first rifugio of the journey. It wasn’t open yet, but it was exciting to imagine the possibility of trail eats — something we depended on more and more on the later stages. There were several free-flowing fountains and troughs to refill water bottles and douse sun hats along the 11-mile journey to Les Chapieux. The day included wide open meadows, cowbells, and ice fields — the kind of topographical glory I’d anticipated. It was glorious but still exhausting and by the time we reached Les Chapieux, we were cooked! We needed to take a shuttle from the trailhead to a nearby town lower in the valley called Bourg St Maurice where our hotel (Hostellerie du Petit St. Bernard) was located. Our kids had a separate hotel room on a separate floor of the hotel— this was a first for us, and it worked out amazingly well with them rousing themselves at the appropriate early hour in the morning. Well done, kids!
Stage 3: Les Chapieux—> Rifugio Monte Bianco
Stage 3 was another long day, so we truncated the start a few miles by taking the return shuttle further up the valley before rejoining the trail. It was still 14 miles before we reached our lodging in the outskirts of Courmayeur at Rifugio Monte Bianco. This was the day we crossed into Italy at Col de la Seigne. There’s no signage about crossing borders, and the preponderance of hikers continued to say bon jour rather than buongiorno on the trail. It was an exhilarating day of hiking through apparent wilderness to reach Rifugio Elisabetta for a lunch of pasta bolognese reminiscent of my grandmother’s. Exceptional, uninterrupted views across the valley before descending many more miles to reach our rifugio. Here we met a friend of friends coincidentally hiking clockwise and intersecting with us at the same rifugio. It was fun to crosscheck impressions and exclaim about all trail runners smoking us on the trail.
Stage 4: Rifugio Monte Bianco —> Courmayeur
Stage 4 involved backtracking several miles to reach a turnoff on the trail that would give us a higher vantage point for approaching Courmayeur. There were slopes and slopes of wildflowers everywhere we looked with direct southern view of Mont Blanc. It was still mercilessly hot, but I was getting better at using electrolyte supplementation and feeling slightly more energetic on the trail. By mid-afternoon, I was sorely looking forward to reaching our hotel and putting my feet up! It was a ~13-mile day with a long slog down ski slopes to reach Courmayeur itself, which also has a pedestrian shopping core. The chairlifts to skip the long descent opened for the summer season the day after our hike. I would’ve taken it in a heartbeat.
We stayed the next three nights at the same hotel (Cresta et Duc), which was terrific for several reasons: the staff were friendly and helpful, the breakfast was comprehensive and tasty, we could get our laundry professionally cleaned and folded, schedule a massage, and best of all have all our stuff in one place for the duration. Our luggage transfer was set up to reunite us with our transported bag (<33lbs) every other day. The rest we carried with us daily. So, although we got proficient at rotating through our limited wardrobe and handwashing clothes at night and replenishing toiletries as needed, it was nice not to be so on the ball for an extra night. It meant hiking with a lighter pack one of the days, too!
The night of arrival in Courmayeur we celebrated with a special dinner at a Sardinian restaurant Chalet Plan Gorret. An extended group of our friends made it to dinner and shared all kinds of dishes, both familiar and unfamiliar. The standout to me was the gnocchi with sausage. As a rule, I don’t eat pork, but dayum, it was hard to completely avoid on this ham-obsessed trip. I’ll never miss ham and I’ll never seek it out, but if sausage is the only way I can eat gnocchi in Italy, you got me: when in Courmayeur…. It was lip-smackingly delectable! As bonus entertainment, other patrons of the restaurant brought their dogs with them. The dogs were all pretty to look at, but they created more ruckus than you can imagine. Any time a person crossed the threshold of the entrance, the dogs would bark reactively. When dogs passed by each other, more dog barking erupted. We couldn’t stop laughing at how unremarkable the disturbance was to the Italians around us and yet we’d startle each time.
Rest day in Courmayeur
For our rest day in Courmayeur, some of our friends thoroughly enjoyed the QC thermal pools in town. It was fun hearing about their time there, but we spent the day shopping for replacement water bottles (rolled irretrievably down a slope) and more electrolyte packets. It was nice to explore the shops unhurriedly. When the skies dumped water on us suddenly that afternoon, we just walked in the rain and enjoyed not being hot. For a few moments we sought shelter in a small market that sold prepared foods along with produce. It was the first and only time we lucked into lingue-style pizza — super thin pizza jerky that was very satisfying to gnaw on.
Stage 5: Courmayeur—> Lavachey (and back by bus)
Stage 5 was an actual day hike (~10mi) because we could return to the same hotel. We lightened up our packs and chose a shadier route for the day rather than the more challenging variant that promised more sun exposure. This was the day we scored the best polenta of the trip at Rifugio Bonatti atop an incredulously steep hill. We took the bus back from Lavachey to Courmayeur and celebrated another day’s trek with my preferred brand of chinotto (Lurisia), a soda made from the myrtle-leaved orange tree. It tastes a bit like sarsaparilla, and its weirdness was definitely the charm for me. Non mi piace the San Pellegrino canned version.
Stage 6: Lavachey—> La Fouly
Stage 6 put us back on the road. We bused to the end of the line at Arp Nuova to skip the infernal hike back up to Bonatti to pick up the TMB trail. From there we hiked ever upward til Grand Col Ferret which marked the border with Switzerland. Having our snack at the top of the Col (mountain pass) was uncomfortably chilly, and we loved it. We soaked it in and noted the change as we descended into Switzerland’s sun-drenched green landscape toward La Fouly 9 miles later. La Fouly is teeny tiny for a town, but its supermarche and sporting goods store attached to our hostel (Auberge des Glaciers) were disproportionately well-outfitted. Breakfast was served at 6:30am the next day, which coincided with the tinkling bells and bleating of a sheep herd passing under our window. Initially I thought the hostel used “alpine Swiss soundtrack” as their come-and-get-it wake-up call.
Stage 7: La Fouly—> Champex-Lac
Stage 7 was an inverted hike where we descended all morning and the climbed the latter part of the day to reach Champex-Lac. These 10 miles were billed as “easier,” but I was just as crabby and sweaty when we arrived at our hotel (Au Vieux Champex). Delightedly, we were directly across from the cool waters of the Lac de Champex where we beelined for submersion. This is the only swimmable body of water on the TMB (from what I’ve read).
Stage 8: Champex-Lac—> Trient
Stage 8 was 11 miles walking in actual rain. To date, we’d avoided hiking in persistent rainfall, but this weather called for layers and rain pants. I was ecstatic to make use of the just-in-case stuff I was carrying. The Alp Bovine food stop partway through the hike offered warm vegetable soup and nectarine tarts for cash only. Switzerland uses its own (CHF) currency but will accept Euros in a pinch. We offloaded every last one of our Francs and Euros in exchange for three bowls of soup and tarts, which we consumed half standing, half covered by a large patio umbrella. We got so cold at this point that we finally layered up with hats, gloves, wool sweaters under our rain gear. Hurray! As the rain stopped later that day, and we descended into the next valley, we warmed up again, rapidly shedding layers. We stayed in another teeny, tiny Swiss town called Trient (La Grande Ourse) with a glass cabana that showed the World Cup to the assorted travelers and sported corn hole, hammocks, a rope swing, and a trampoline in the yard.
Stage 9: Trient—> Argentiere
Stage 9 brought us back to France at the Col de Balme. This is also where the greenscape of Switzerland transitioned back to the snowcapped peaks of the once-again visible Mont Blanc massif. Eleven miles later, we descended into Argentiere (Hotel La Couronne), the northernmost end of the Chamonix Valley where we immediately did laundry. The heat was now less intense but nine stages into this trek, I was winded and wiped out. I wasn’t sleeping through any of the nights. My muscles felt restless, and I struggled to relax back to sleep. I amped myself up during the day with caffe lattes but never lit on a good wind-down routine. At this point, the kids were growing more ecstatic about how few stages of the trek remained. They seemed indomitable. I felt indomitable, too, despite my fatigue! We were doing this thing! Blister-free, too!
Stage 10: Argentiere—> Flegere
Stage 10 involved climbing back up the Aiguilles Rouges to the Flegere cable car 5 miles later to descend back down to our hotel (Les Lanchers) in the valley. The mileage made the day seem like it’d be a cake walk, but the terrain was rocky and scree-filled with little shade. This was also the fateful day with ladders to scale up more vertical rock faces. The kids loved it. I could do it, but it was a tad too scary for me with a heavy pack on. We got more soup at the cash-only Refuge du Lac Blanc, this time forking over every American dollar we had for three bowls of soup and two water bottles. (It wasn’t cheap.) The hotel gave us adjoining rooms with a shared terrace. It was a perfect set up for our family with cooler air infusing our rooms with views of the mountain ranges.
Stage 11: Flegere—> Les Houches
Stage 11 — the final day! We went back up the Flegere cable car to find the trail that would take us to the day’s highest peak, the Brevent summit. This was a lot of rock scrambling and more ladders, and my sweat was more fear- than evaporation-laced. At this peak (8, 284ft), having completed over 35,000 feet of elevation gain and 111 miles logged over the last 11 stages, I looked across the valley at Mont Blanc and decided I was done. Some of us took the gondola to cable car all the way down from the summit to the valley floor (Hotel L’Arve), while half my family hightailed it 6 more miles, descending 7,000 feet to return by foot to the Les Houches arch where it all began. Our whole extended group reconvened for a final celebratory Fourth of July dinner at L’Index, which served a prix fixe multi-course meal that would’ve felt overly fancy were it not for the outdoor lawn setting, sun-drenched mountains towering over us, and accommodating waitstaff. This was our splurge meal, and every single morsel was a marvel. I was overjoyed that my kids dug it, too!
The first feelings that rushed in as I showered off my last stage of the TMB were blue, kinda like the day after your birthday. An anticlimactic-scented accomplishment. The good food and elderflower spritz buoyed me some as did the warmth shared among our hiking comrades. The rushing-in urgency of reality and its plethora of choice creeping into the protected capsule of time that was hiking with my family and friends through the French, Italian, and Swiss Alps on the precipice of milestone birthdays. Happy semiquincentennial, America!
Tl;dr
We hiked 111-117 miles depending on who you ask, crossing into three successive countries, during this summer’s inhospitably warm heat wave.
I recommend everything we did in preparation. No regrets or do overs there. Some specific call outs:
Country Time lemonade packets
LMNT electrolyte sachets
Tenugui quick-drying towel for travel
Extra small fanny pack for toiletries
Wool socks + Topo Traverse = blister-free feet for hundreds of miles
Cork massage ball weighed almost nothing and was enjoyable for rolling out tired feet
Some of the lodges expect you to leave shoes, packs, and poles in storage room before entering the premises. This caught us off guard, but the dry bags we had were helpful with keeping our stuff together
I’m very grateful for the friends and family who partook in this shared adventure. It would have been a smaller and lonelier experience without you
For some reason, France dispenses fewer menus than there are people. I don’t know why there is a shortage of menus
There are transmission corridors in the Alps, too!
Italy rocks!
Fruit honorable mentions:
Tasty apricots
Myrtle-leaf orange-tree-inspired chinotto drink
The Brothers Karamazov is not my jam. If you love this book, please tell me why
This is wonderful! Congratulations, Russo Foxes!
Well done!