TOUR DU MONT BLANC

Tour Du Mont Blanc Day 2 - Refuge La Balme to Refuge des Mottets

I woke up at 6:20 AM and was happy to find blue skies perfect for getting everything ready outside in the fresh air – which was not always the case during our Patagonia trip. Prior to 7:00 AM breakfast, I was pretty much all set to go.

Breakfast during TMB was a little lacking to me, most mornings. On the O-Loop in Patagonia, we were given hot eggs almost every morning which was not the case on the TMB. Breakfasts typically included bread with butter and jam and cereal & milk, plus coffee. Occasionally there would be yogurt which would THRILL me.  Once in a while there was some cheese (but usually the kind I didn’t love). 

After breakfast we picked up our picnic lunch for the day, which you usually have to order when you check in! We did a mix of picnic lunches and lunch stops at refuges during the trip, but we knew that Day 2 wouldn’t have a great lunch opportunity. 

We hit the trail at 8:00 AM!

The first climb of the day started immediately, and it was a rough one for me. In hindsight, I think it was the hardest climb for me mentally and physically because it was early in the trip and I wasn’t used to the first thing I did every morning to be climbing 1,000 ft/mile for like 3,000+ feet.

That little dot the furthest left is me, slow and steady.

This climb brought us up to Col du Bonhomme, which had some beautiful views! My favorite part was the little lake you could see off in the distance.

We were taking the variant route that day to Col de Fours (the “regular” route has you go through the town of Chapieux) and made a left at the top of the Col du Bonhomme viewpoint (after a significant photoshoot break) and continued to climb (in a lot less steep and demoralizing manner!) 

Once we reached the Col des Fours viewpoint, we took some time to figure out where the trail was vs. the side quest and eventually dropped our big bags off and went lightweight up to the Tete des Fours viewpoint. It felt like we were so high up! We enjoyed our picnic lunch up here with 360 degree views – we had been given a hard-boiled egg, couscous salad, bread and cheese, an apple and a chocolate chip cookie.

Towards the end of our time at the viewpoint, we saw a map that helps you orient yourself / figure out what mountains and peaks you’re looking at. I’m glad we stopped to look at it, because we realized we were staring straight out at Mont Blanc!

Once we got down and found our bags, it was time to start the descent to La Ville des Glaciers. What I remember most about this descent is the way the rock was shimmering – it almost looked like water.

And these two lush, green…humps? They made me want to go sledding and I liked keeping an eye on them and how they changed from different angles.

The descent was about 2 hours, and that might sound nice, but trust me, going downhill for two hours is worse than going uphill for two hours. Especially when the descent is full of dry, loose rock and sand and you’re in constant fear of slipping!

In fact, I did take a big slip and slide down some rocks which gave me a scare AND some painful bits of…something…in my fingers. I managed to pull most of it out (not sure if it was invisible flecks of shale? Microscopic plant pricks?)

At that point I was ready for a pick-me up and ass we walked alongside the Tufs stream, the water was calling my name. I found a spot with the perfect Lauren-sized dunk spot and submerged myself. It was perfect and felt amazing. It gave me the renewed energy to finish the walk (which did level out eventually) into La Ville des Glaciers.

When we got there, Soma got some ice cream and I waited patiently for a 1 euro yogurt while the woman in front of me asked about 10x “is this made with cow’s milk?” as if we hadn’t been seeing cows non-stop, couldn’t hear the cow bells, etc. We thought we might be able to jump on a bus to Refuge des Mottets, but nothing seemed to be coming so we set out on the final 30 minute walk. It was a sliiiight incline the whole way, and I actually preferred it to pancake flat.

When we got to Mottets there were lots of people sitting outside and the views were amazing. We were pleasantly surprised to find out that we had a private room for the night! We booked so long ago (at the end of November for an August trip) and all of the confirmations were in French, so we weren’t entirely sure what we had booked. Every night at check in was a fun surprise.

The private room was quite nice – with our own shower and toilet (though we didn’t have a wall or door for said toilet).

We sat out reading, journaling, and chatting to a woman who was on a guided tour and had sat out the hike. It turns out she lives in Stockholm, so I was obviously down to talk. Though at a certain point, I just wanted to journal and read my book! 

Soma got us beers and the most delicious ham and cheese crepe as our second lunch? First dinner?

We both showered before dinner, where we sat with Americans, Canadians, and a couple from England. We had good conversation with the Californian couple (apparently we need to go do this backpacking route near Mammoth Lakes that is named after his father.)

Dinner was really good soup that had potatoes, veggies, kidney and garbanzo beans. Then there was sausage, potatoes and rice and a flan-like thing for dessert.

There was also a fun moment during dinner where one of the refuge women played an old-fashioned hand-crank music box and some of the French hikers got down on the floor and started crowd surfing people – it was wild.

We sat out for a little bit to read and watch the horses before our typical 9 pm bed-time!

Day 2 Statistics

Mileage: 9.31 Miles

elevation: 3,773 feet

*I found a lot of useful trails on Wikiloc as opposed AllTrails which I don’t think is as popular in Europe. There is a free trial, which I started before our trip and then cancelled when I got home!

Tour Du Mont Blanc Day 1 - Chamonix to Refuge La Balme

Five months after completing Patagonia’s O-Loop, we set out on another hut-to-hut hiking adventure. This time, we were tackling the famous Tour du Mont-Blanc, a 105-mile route around the Alps – from France to Italy to Switzerland and back to France.

I had done a ton of planning and researching and was beyond excited for this 8-night, 9-day journey. If you’ve ever wondered about hut-to-hut hiking in Europe, you’ll find a ton of information below (maybe more than you ever wanted to know).

Day 1: NYC to Chamonix

Chamonix is the starting point for most people completing the Tour du Mont-Blanc. It’s a quick hour and ten-minute bus ride from the Geneva airport (we used Swiss Tours, which you can also book through Rome2Rio or Omio). Chamonix is an outdoor, active person’s dream town, and it’s surprisingly easy to get there. A 7-hour direct flight from JFK and an hour bus ride? Easy peasy.

When we arrived, we were dropped off at the bus stop steps from our hotel. Hôtel Les Aiglons Chamonix was very beautiful, with views of Mont-Blanc from their gorgeous pool and sauna area. We couldn’t check in right away, so we threw our luggage into storage and ventured out to explore the town.

Chamonix’s streets are filled with hikers, trail runners, rock climbers, road cyclists and mountain bikers in the summer. I’ve never seen storefronts for more outdoor brands in one place, anywhere, ever. Columbia, Helly Hanson, Decathlon, Patagonia, Millet, Terrex, Arc’teryx…just to name a few. Interspersed between the outdoor stores are tons of different restaurants.

But the best part about strolling these streets are the insane mountain views everywhere you look. Not to mention the rushing Arve River, fed by glaciers, where you can see people white water rafting!

After walking around for a while, we stopped to sit down for an iced latte at Shoukâ, a coffee and cacao factory. It was HOT out, so naturally the next stop was gelato from Pastry House Richard. Soma had apricot nougat and I had café!

It was finally time to check-in to the hotel, and we headed straight for the incredible pool. It was lovely to sit out with our Kindles for an hour or two before getting ready to find dinner.

We headed back into town and our first stop was for a drink and some appetizers at Le Shack. This is definitely an “it” spot to be, they typically have different DJs and music.  I tried the new spritz of the summer, a Sarti Spritz. Think of a Hugo Spritz’s fruiter, sweeter, flavored sibling (blood oranges, mango, and passion fruit). We had some halloumi bao buns & wontons just to curb the hanger while we wandered around in search of dinner. 

We ended up at Le Monchu which may have been slightly touristy, but the food we got was delicious (escargot and duck). This restaurant is MASSIVE. 

We considered karaoke at the private karaoke rooms in our hotel but ended up going to bed instead. I was proud of us for powering through the day and not napping!

Day 2: Chamonix

We slept in way later than I was expecting – but figured we could get all the sleep we could get before the hiking began!

When we were finally up and about, I obviously needed breakfast STAT. We stopped at Pastry House Richard so Soma could get a croissant and an espresso, so French. And then headed to Galerie Café des Aiguilles, a cute spot featuring local artists and tons of breakfast options. We sat outside, and I was slightly hungover and INCREDIBLY hot. Somehow 75 degrees in Chamonix felt like 95 degrees in NYC. My iced latte helped, and then the “Vegetarian” breakfast plate revived me – two eggs, multigrain bread, cheese, orange slices, tomatoes, cucumbers, jam, and what turned out to be my favorite - a La Conviette mini French butter roll. Ok, this might seem weird. But I haven’t been able to stop thinking about this butter. I’ve considering spending an insane amount of money on shipping myself a box of these tiny little rolls of heaven.  If anyone knows of somewhere I can buy these in NYC, PLEASE help a girl out.

After breakfast there was a local farmer’s market going on, so we strolled through that. Everything looked so fresh!

Despite the fact that I was melting, I figured we had to do at least one activity in town other than eat, drink and sit at the pool, so we headed to the alpine coaster at Les Planards. It was actually very fun! Though when I got to the top, Soma was just sitting there, not moving, because he had failed to pay attention to the 10 signs about how to work your car and make it go. So I promptly crashed into him, which was expressly forbidden by the signs! Once we established that he actually needed to operate his car, we got moving!

After that we hung out at the pool and then went for an early dinner at a place we had passed on the first night – Bizes. I highly recommend this spot, it was so delicious! I would try to get a reservation if you can, we lucked out because we showed up right when they opened. We had a roasted cauliflower appetizer that was so unique (and beautiful) and a ridiculously good swordfish that I could have eaten 5 of. The chicken curry was just fine. We also made a stop for a dessert crepe – because, vacation!

And with that, we went back to the room and did our final packing and sorting and reorganizing because our adventure was going to begin the next morning!

Day 3: Chamonix to Refuge La Balme

Unfortunately, neither of us slept much the night before we started. I’m not sure if it was nerves or jet lag, but I probably got 5 hours of sleep and Soma only got 1 or 2! He sat up all night reading! 

But sleep or no sleep, our alarms went off at 5:30 AM and it was time to boogie. We had gotten ourselves breakfast the day before at the supermarket, so we ate that while we got dressed and went to the lobby to put the rest of our bags into storage.

Unlike Patagonia, hotels in Chamonix do charge you to store your luggage while you’re hiking – just something to keep in mind! The going rate seems to be 5 Euro per bag per day.

We were right across from the bus stop and popped out to take the 6:49 AM bus to Les Houches, where most people start the TMB from. It was a short 20-minute ride and we arrived at the Bellevue cable car at 7:15 AM, with the first ride up at 7:30 AM!

Cable cars in the Alps ain’t cheap, but the initial climb from Les Houches to the Bellevue plateau is about 4 miles and 2,600 ft. of climbing with not much to see – so I didn’t feel that guilty skipping it! Plus, we were opting for the more challenging Col de Tricot variant for the day, stopping at Refuge de Miage and Refuge du Truc before a stop in Les Contamines and yet another climb up to our accommodations for the night at Refuge la Balme.

We slathered on some sunscreen and set out! We were in the woods for the first bit, but pretty soon, the views began! We were greeted by the Bionnassay Glacier, crossed a suspension bridge (that was definitely not as death-defying as the suspension bridges in Patagonia), and started our climb up the grassy saddle of Col di Tricot.

Looking back, the view from the Col di Tricot was definitely just a warm up for the views to come. We could see down to Refuge Miage and started the steep descent. The whole time I was going down, I was impressed by the number of people going UP including a man with a wailing baby on his back.

This is what we came down!

When we made it down to Refuge Miage, it was still fairly early so we didn’t stop to eat anything. But we did sit down for a minute and take in the views. I loved the pink wildflowers and the creek flowing through.

From Refuge Miage to Auberge du Truc was about 35 minutes of steep incline that kind of kicked my ass! I was very excited for what turned out to be an extended lunch break at the beautiful Auberge du Truc.

We got there around 11:20 and lunch service didn’t start until noon. The views were gorgeous, so we opted to wait until food was available as opposed to pressing onwards to the town of Contamines for lunch. I think it was the right call! I taught Soma to play Rummy 500 and before we knew it, he was enjoying a big meat and cheese board and I had a fresh omelet!

I remember the downhill from Auberge du Truc into Les Contamines wasn’t very scenic – we treated ourselves to gelato (Soma) and a cold Orangina (me) when we got into town. There are a number of opportunities to use public transportation during the TMB to shave off some mileage (and cable cars to shave off ascent/descent). I found two articles online that were incredibly helpful and lay it all out. (https://tourdumontblanchike.com/tour-du-mont-blanc-public-transport/ and https://www.macsadventure.com/us/tmb-transport/).

We took the opportunity to hop on Bus #34 (free) which took us through Les Contamines and saved us about an hour of flat, town walking. No regrets! The bus dropped us off at Notre Dame de la Gorge, a beautiful church in the woods. We drenched our sun shirts and hats in the fountain, and began our last climb of the day.

We took a little side quest to look at “Pont Naturel,” a natural arch over the river that wasn’t that exciting if I’m being honest. After we reached Nant Borrant, we could see Refuge Le Balme in the distance and it seemed like it was nearby, but the last 3 KM felt like a reallllll slog! But it’s a huge perk to have incredible views while slogging!

We made it to Refuge Le Balme around 4 PM. When we checked in, we were reminded that we had beds in different dorm rooms for the first night which was a bummer, but not the end of the world. 

An interesting bit of intel if you hike TMB – when you check in, they don’t collect the rest of your payment – they tell you to come back and pay “after dinner.” I nearly forgot a few times, and it didn’t seem like a great system, but that seemed to be the method at all of the refuges we stayed at!

We were given a quick but thorough tour, which was helpful because there were more rules than there were in Patagonia! Almost all of the refuges request that you not bring your shoes or hiking poles (“sticks”) into the dorms (if you have a private room, they’re sometimes more lenient, but there is almost always a separate area for hiking boots).

At Refuge La Balme, there was a separate shed-like building with shelving and a place to put your hiking boots and backpacks. They called this the “drying room” and you could pick up plastic bins to put everything that you wanted to take into the dorm rooms.

They had a shower room, restrooms, sinks and a ton of drying lines set up. We grabbed one of the outdoor tables and took turns showering (no wait!) When I was done I brought my stuff up to my dorm room – it was strange to not have a tent to set up! Neil and Rachel were two Australians in my room, and they were part of a group (I was the only non-group member). In retrospect, this was probably the nicest of the dorm rooms that we stayed in! 

We also saw the 4 trail runners that we had taken the shuttle with from Chamonix to Les Houches this morning – their bags looked so smol, I was jealous!

When we were both done showering we enjoyed a slice of pie and read/journaled. Soma was exhausted after not sleeping the night before, so he actually took a nap before 6:30 dinner.

The cleanliness at Refuge Le Balme extended to everyone taking off their shoes and socks to go into the dining building!

We were seated with a very un-chatty couple so there was no real dinner conversation. We started with a zucchini soup and then the most delicious pasta with some kind of mild, soft, creamy cheese and topped with fresh grilled veggies (broccoli, zucchini, eggplant, cherry tomatoes). Soma and I ate a lotttt.

Sadly, whatever the French cheese is that we were served at almost every meal I wasn’t a huge fan of – just a little too funky for me. From Googling “TMB French Cheese” I got this: Tomme de Savoie, a semi-hard, cow's milk cheese from the French Alps known for its rustic appearance, nutty and herbal flavors, and grayish rind with mold spots.

Soma was ready to crash and went straight to bed. I went out to the back of the building and found Adirondack chairs which was a pleasant surprise – I sat down with my book to read and watch the sunset with an incredible view. The trail runners showed up, and I stayed up until about 8:45 PM chatting with them. They were Canadian (Vancouver and Squamish) and joked about getting kicked out from living there if you don’t participate in 3 or more outdoor activities. They were planning on doing the whole TMB in 5 days!

Not a bad reading view.

I read until 9 in bed and then it was time to pass out – I slept decently in a sports bra and shorts in my silk sleeping bag liner (my advice – definitely get one with the attached pillow case, it made me feel much better wrapping the refuge pillows in my own liner!) Prior to leaving I went back and forth on what to pack for pajamas and couldn’t find much advice online. I found that the entire trip, shorts and a sports bra was totally fine, I was never cold!

Day 1 Statistics:

Mileage: 10.25 MILES

Elevation: 3,829 feet of elevation gain

trail map: https://www.alltrails.com/trail/france/haute-savoie/les-houches-bellevue-refuge-de-la-balme-via-mont-truc