The Euro Travel Coach Team just lately accomplished the Tour du Mont Blanc. It was a very wonderful expertise. The hike was a problem, each bodily and mentally, with unimaginable rewards together with spectacular views, incredible camaraderie, and the sensation of accomplishment if you’ve achieved a objective you’ve been planning for months and months.
We’ll be posting new blogs on the Tour du Mont Blanc, however it’s price reposting this one, initially written in September 2019, only a few months earlier than we ever heard of coronavirus. The hike described right here was the inspiration for us to finish the tour all collectively. It is one thing we talked about throughout lockdowns brought on by the pandemic, and dreamed about earlier than we may journey freely once more.
The key to creating this journey profitable is nice planning. Plan forward, e-book your refuges early within the fall and early within the spring for a tour the next summer season. Also, pack gentle, carry blister bandaids and get your digicam able to take wonderful footage and create recollections that may stick with you the remainder of your life.
We hope you get pleasure from this reposting of Chelsea’s weblog from her first time on this space.
Four days on the tour du mont blanc
My husband Sam and I stay in Bristol, UK, and we sometimes select our trip locations based mostly on flight worth and timing. When we had been looking out Skyscanner just lately for a spot to go over the August financial institution vacation, a reasonable flight to Geneva popped up that left on a Friday morning and returned on a Tuesday night time. We knew it was meant to be! Sam solely had to make use of two days of trip and we obtained practically 5 full days of journey time. We knew we didn’t need to spend the entire time in Geneva – it’s an exquisite metropolis however it may be costly and there’s not all that a lot we needed to see within the metropolis itself – so we began brainstorming choices close by. We mentioned renting a automotive and testing the Jura wine area, and exploring the Vanoise Glaciers (each issues that I’d nonetheless actually love to do), earlier than ultimately deciding on doing a portion of the Tour du Mont Blanc (TMB). The TMB is a 170 kilometer mountain climbing route that passes by Switzerland, Italy and France, encircling the Mont Blanc massif. The full tour sometimes takes round 7-10 days to finish. Since we had been restricted on time (we hiked for 3 and a half days, and spent our last day in Geneva) we had been solely in a position to full about 1/3 of the route (plus somewhat detour), from Les Houches to Courmeyeur. It was an unimaginable option to spend our lengthy weekend!
Practicalities
We used Cicerone’s The Tour of Mont Blanc Complete Two-Way Trekking Guide by Kev Reynolds each upfront of our journey to assist plan our schedule and through our time on the path. It was completely invaluable and I might advocate it to anybody within the TMB. We stayed at mountain “refuges” whereas we had been on the path, that are lodges dotted across the TMB which offer beds (most have dorms and personal rooms obtainable), water, and meals. We packed every thing we would have liked into two mountain climbing backpacks and carried them with us on the path. There are firms that may present baggage transfers, but it surely does restrict the place you may keep, because the lodging should be accessible by automotive. If attainable, I might extremely advocate carrying your individual pack – pack gentle and do sink laundry if vital. You may all the time retailer bigger baggage in Geneva in case you’re incorporating the TMB into an extended European journey.
Day 1
Les Houches to Refuge du Fioux