Twelve of us, we named our team “The Terrific Twelve”, did the Tour du Mont Blanc (“TMB”) trek from July 17-26, 2024. This is a trek that circles around the Mont Blanc Massif and is approximately 160 km long, with 35,000 ft of climbing. It starts in Chamonix, France, goes into Italy, then Switzerland and finally, back to Chamonix, France.
Trek Summary
The Terrific Twelve team members were from left to right, Monika Agarwal, Sagar Chivate, Arun Kumar, Priti Gairola, Neel Patwardhan, Srinivas S., Meenal Patwardhan, Anuradha Palnitkar, Jai Rawat, Rohan Rawat, Yashvi Rawat, Samir Palnitkar.
Trek Statistics:
- Distance: 160 km (100 miles)
- Elevation Gain: 35,000 ft
- Start at 8 am everyday, reach by 4-5 pm. 8-9 hours on the trail everyday.
- 1 hour for picnic lunch. Fresh sandwiches made with french baguette, cheese, spreads, veggies and meat
- Everyday, 2-5 hours of climbing, lunch, then 2-3 hours of descent
Unlike other treks which go from one point to another, where you stay at each of those points, TMB is different. You trek on the TMB, but stay in hotels/dormitories in the towns surrounding the Mont Blanc massif. Sometimes, you can take buses or cable cars to reach the starting point or destination. So this trek is very different from other treks done in the past. It is a combination of amazing beauty but with tourist comforts.
Here is a day by day summary.
Day 0: Tue, June 16, 2024: Arrival in Chamonix
All team members arrived in Chamonix on Tuesday, mostly between 2 pm and 4 pm. We stayed at the Cosmiques Hotel. I thought that the hotel was a little overpriced for its small rooms. But it was a typical backpackers hotel.
Benjamin Demilly was our guide. As a teenager, he had lived in the US and later during college, he also traveled to India for 3 months. So his English was very good and he knew a lot about both the US and India. In India, he had completed the Everest Base Camp and Stok Kangri treks. He knew a lot about the history, culture, geography and geo-politics of Chamonix, France and Europe in general. It was great to interact with him.
We walked over the to the nearby office of Compagnie des Guides de Chamonix, an association of guides founded in 1824, one of the oldest in the region. He showed us the topographical map of the region and explained how we were going to do the trek.
We had dinner at Annapurna Restaurant, which was run by people from Mauritius of Indian origin. Interestingly, the first person to climb Annapurna Peak in Nepal was Maurice Herzog, a Frenchman. French climbers train in Chamonix Valley in the French Alps and are some of the best climbers in the world.
Day 1: Wed, July 17, 2024: Chamonix -> Le Brevent Peak -> Les Houches
Our route for the first day.
We started at 8.30 am from Chamonix Centre.
Trekked up to the base of the lift Plan Praz cable car going to Le Brevent. We took the lift that carried us from 900 m to 1500 m. The cable car was long and tall.
We reached to the top of the lift in 30 mins. We started climbing to the peak Le Brevent at 2,525 m. We reached the top of the peak in 2.15 hours at about 11.15 am. Le Brevent peak is in the mountain range that is opposite the Mont Blanc range. That is why the views are great.
We spent about 30 mins at the top. Lots of clouds, did not get any views at the top.
Then descended almost 1050 m, about 3,500 ft down. Path was filled with wildflowers. Lot of people doing paragliding, no gusty winds. Great views of Mont Blanc throughout our descent.
We stopped on the way for lunch. Ben, the guide, had prepared delicious vegetarian sandwiches for all of us. Made of French Baguette, avocado, sweet potato, tomato and feta cheese. We really enjoyed them.
Towards the end of the descent, we entered the forest and ended our first day’s hike at 3.30 pm at a shuttle bus stop. The shuttle stop was at 1,473 m.
We took the shuttle and came to the Les Houches bus stop at around 4.10 pm.From there, we walked up to our hotel Campanules. The hotel turned out to be totally awesome.
We had beautiful views of Mont Blanc from our window.
Our dinner was served at around 8 pm in the garden. It was 3 course dinner with Tabouleh salad for appetizer, Pasta for main course and ice cream/chocolate mousse for dessert.
We enjoyed a nice conversation over dinner against the backdrop of the beautiful Mont Blanc. We finished our dinner at 9.15 pm and headed for bed. Long day tomorrow.
Total time: 7 hours
Distance: 14 km
Total Ascent: 1,700 ft
Total Descent: 3,400 ft
Day 2: Thu, July 18, 2024: Les Houches to Les Contamines
Our second day took us from Les Houches (pronounced “Lez Hoosh”) to Les Contamines (pronounced “Lez Contamine”). Typically, for most trekkers, Les Houches is the starting point of the TMB trek
We started from our hotel at 8.15 am (8 am was the original proposed departure time, but breakfast was served at only 7.30 am, so we got a little late)
We walked for about 45 mins to the Cable Car to Bellevue. We saw pretty flowers in the French villages. Typically, all bridges and homes have flowers adorning them. Looks really nice.
We took the Cable Car up to Bellevue. We climbed from 900 m to 1800 m in the cable car. Once we got off the cable car, we walked for an hour on a relatively flat up and down path.
At about 10.15 am, we started climbing towards Col Du Tricot, a high mountain pass at approximately 2,200 m. We passed a fast flowing stream with a bridge on it.
At a certain point, there was a steep path to Col du Tricot. We took the much longer path which had a smaller gradient. It winded it way to the mountain pass.
We reach Col du Tricot (Tricot Mountain Pass) at about 11.30 am.
We spent a little time there, took photos and then there was a descent of about 700m to 1,500 ft where we stopped for lunch at Refuge de Miage at around 12.30 pm. We had soup, salad and sandwiches in a beautiful setting.
We spent about 1 hour for lunch till 2.00 pm.
We started climbing again for 45 mins to about 1,800 m. At around 2.45 pm, we started a long descent to about 1,100 m. We reached the motorable road at around 3.40 pm. We continued walking along the road, until we reached the CAF dormitory at 4 pm.
Dinner was good, made by the one person who was handling the entire dormitory.
Total time: 8 hours
Distance: 20 km
Total Ascent: 3,000 ft
Total Descent: 4,200 ft
Day 3: Fri, July 19, 2024: Les Contamines to Le Chapieux
We had breakfast at CAF dormitory in Les Contamines and we were ready by 7.45 am. We left at 7.55 am.
We walked for about 1 hour through the village of Les Contamines until we entered a Natural Reserve. We were at 1,150 m. We then started climbing at around 8.55 am.
We climbed for 1.30 hrs till 10.25 am. We had a small stop at a location where we could fill water. Lots of wildflowers along the way. It was like a garden of wildflowers.
We continued climbing till we reached Col du Bonhomme at 2,300 m. at 12.40 pm.
We had a great lunch with bread, cheese, avocado, hummus and bell pepper dip, melon, grape tomatoes.We had a great time enjoying the views at that mountain pass.
We spent about 50 mins for lunch and again at around 1.40 pm we continued climbing for another 250 m till 2,550 m. We reached there at 2.30 pm.
Then we started a long descent towards the village of Le Chapieux at 2.30 pm and descended for 1,000 m (about 3,300 ft) reaching Le Chapieux at 4.20 pm. It was a very gradual descent and we will able to make the descent very quickly.
Le Chapieux is a small village. It did not have too much accommodation. We stretched a little bit after our arrival at Le Chapieux as we waited for our van to arrive.
We were driven by a private shuttle to a town called Bourg Saint Maurice. It was a long winding road for 25 mins from the town of Le Chapieux. The TGV comes to this railway station. We reached our hotel Base Camp Lodge at around 5 pm.
We had dormitory rooms with bunk beds and shared bathrooms. But it is a hotel built in 2022 and the dormitory room was huge and modern. Great views from the balcony.
Our dinner was at 7 pm on the terrace. Hummus and falafel for appetizer, pasta for main course and sorbet with fruit for dessert. Pasta was not very good. Generally, in Europe, the food is presented very well, but for the Indian palate, it tastes very bland.
We retired at about 9 pm. At 10 pm, everyone was asleep waiting for the next day to Courmayeur in Italy.
Total time: 8.5 hours
Distance: 21 km
Total Ascent: 4,300 ft
Total Descent: 3,000 ft
Day 4: Sat, July 20, 2024: Le Chapieux, France to Courmayeur, Italy
We left from our hotel at Bourg St. Maurice at exactly 8 am and drove to a village called Ville de Glaciers (City of Glaciers).
Ben bought some locally made cheese called Beaufort cheese. The local industry in Ville de Glaciers is cheesemaking from the basics.
We started at about 8.50 am from Ville de Glaciers and started climbing towards Col de la Seigne, a high mountain pass that represents the dividing line between France and Italy.
The climb was about 2,600 ft and took about 2.15 hrs at around 11.15 am. We spent about 25 mins at the top.
We started the descent at around 11.45 am and instead of taking the TMB trail, we took an off the beaten path trail to a concrete bunker built by the Italians in world war II to protect the French from invading across the mountain pass. The TMB trail was perfectly in sight of the machine gun position in the bunker. The bunker was a very interesting experience.
We reached the bunker at 12.15 am and explored the bunker for 30 mins. Then we spent another 1 hour for lunch (French style of eating lunch is very relaxed). We started descending from the bunker around 1.45 pm through snow for about 100 m. Then we rejoined the TMB trail.
We continued walking till a point where we had to make a decision whether to go to Courmayeur by bus or to also do the next day’s itinerary by walk the same day. I.e. two days into one. We had reached this point at 2.45 pm.
We decided to walk to Courmayeur and take the lift down. We started climbing and it was about a 2,000 ft elevation gain to the top. Beautiful views of Mont Blanc at its broadest. We had reached that point at 4.00 pm, in 1.15 hours.
We took some pictures and at 4.07 we started walking down to the lift station.
The problem was that the lift station closed at 5.20 pm. Generally, it was expected to take about 1.30 hrs. So there was a great chance that we would miss the chair lift. We took it up as a challenge. It was a 1,800 ft descent but we walked really fast. The last people Srinivas and Monica were there in by 5.10 pm. We did the trek in 1.03 hrs instead of 1.30 hrs. Incredible performance by the team.
We took the chairlift and another lift (2 stages) to descend almost 800 m (about 2,500 ft) to Courmayeur. If we had missed the lift, we would have had to climb down the entire descent on foot. That would have been very difficult.
It was a very difficult day because we did two days of walking in one. But amazing performance by the team in doing this long walk with heavy climbs and descents at an amazing speed.
Once we came down on the lift, we walked another 1.5 kms to the hotel. Hotel Central near the church spire in Courmayeur center.
It was an exceptionally difficult and tiring day. We had covered two days of trekking into one. We had pizza dinner at an Italian restaurant. Pizza was very good.
Total time: 9 hours
Distance: 26 km
Total Ascent: 4,600 ft
Total Descent: 4,000 ft
Day 5: Sun, July 21, 2024: Rest Day at Courmayeur, Italy
Since we had done two days worth of trekking on the previous day, Day 4, we were able to take a rest day at Courmayeur. Since, we were staying at Hotel Centrale for 3 nights, we could relax. The rest day turned out to be lucky because that was the only day it was raining, the remaining 9 days during our trek were bright and sunny, with no clouds.
A small group went for a 10 km trek and returned by bus.
Another group went around the town of Courmayeur for some local sightseeing.
We had lunch at an Italian restaurant. I had ordered a burger, but it came with only the patty and no bread. I guess, the stylish Italian restaurant wanted to change the definition of an American burger.
I just slept in and did pretty much nothing the whole. It was fun to see the rain from within the warm confines of my room. Time to rest and recover!
Day 6: Mon, July 22, 2024: Courmayeur to Arp Nueva
We started at 7.57 am and started walking towards Arp Nuva via the Valle Ferret Balcony trail. Valle Ferret is the name given to the long valley which spans across Italy and Switzerland and is separated by Col Ferret pass. There was a long continuous climb from 1,200 m to 2,000 m (800 m climb). We climbed for nearly 2 hours.
Then we continued up and down on the balcony trail. The wildflowers were really beautiful. It was like walking in a garden. We saw some fantastic views of the peaks in the Mont Blanc range.
We stopped for lunch around 12.30 pm and had lunch at a place by the stream where cows were grazing. The lunch was similar to earlier days, bread with dips, bell peppers, tomatoes, avocados. There were little calves grazing with the cows. Pretty cool.
We then continue along the balcony trail and then a gradual descent into Arp Nuva.
We arrived at about 4.20 pm at the Arp Nuva Bus stop. We took the bus back to Courmayeur main bus station. Arrived at the bus station around 5 pm.
Had dinner in the evening at 7 pm at an Italian restaurant . Again a 3 course meal, pasta, salad and dessert. Pasta was not very tasty, salad had too many leaves. I just had some icecream for dessert. The rest had tiramisu which was quite good.
Had some work to do, slept at 11.30 pm.
Total time: 8 hours
Distance: 21 km
Total Ascent: 4,600 ft
Total Descent: 3,400 ft
Day 7: Tue, July 23, 2024: Arp Nueva, Italy to Champax Lac, Switzerland
Breakfast at 7.15 am. Left the hotel at 7.50 pm. Took the 8.10 am bus to Arp Nuva to start the next leg of our journey from Italy to Switzerland.
Started climbing at Arp Nuva at around 9 am. We immediately started climbing from 1,800 m and climbed to about 2,500 ft. We first reached Refugio Elena, located in a beautiful location below the mountain pass.
We kept climbing reaching Col Ferret (Ferret Mountain Pass) at around 11.20 am (2.20 hrs climb). It was very windy at the pass. This pass had a stone marking the boundary between Italy and Switzerland.
We then took a detour to another mountain pass on a side route that is less trafficked. We did some sliding in the snow using our stick.
We stopped for lunch around 12.30 pm. Had the usual lunch until 1.30 pm. Bread, cheese, dip, tomato, avocado, bell peppers etc. Had a nap till 1.30 pm.
Then it was a gradual climb down to Le Fouly. We ended up at a stream which we could not cross. So we had to retrace our steps and go back on a different route to Le Fouly.
We reached La Fouly around 3.30 pm. Our taxi arrived at 3.45 pm. While we waited for the taxi we ate some ice cream (caramel and chocolate). We were taken by taxi to Champex Lac (Champex Lake) where our dormitory was located.
Dinner was at 7 pm. Food was clear vegetable soup (ok), cheese fondue (i did not eat it), potatoes (I ate with salt and pepper), Salad (too leafy), Boiled spinach (tasteless), spicy potatoes (I did eat) and cake (not very good). I tried going out to get ice cream, but it was closed.
Jai and I did some work. I wrote my notes and then went to sleep at 10.20 pm.
Total time: 7 hours
Distance: 15 km
Total Ascent: 3,200 ft
Total Descent: 3,600 ft
Day 8: Wed, July 24, 2024: Champex Lac, Switzerland to Triente, Switzerland
We started walking from our bunk bed dormitory in Champex-lac at 8.05 am. The initial part was through the forest going up and then slightly down. We walked for about 1.30 hrs till about 9.30 am.
Then the climb started. We climbed for about 3 hours about 2,000 ft till we reached the village of Bovine (related to cows) at around 12.30 pm. The terrain was a little tricky, but not too hard.
We had lunch at Bovine. We had a potato dish called Rosti, potatoes with cheese. Anu and I got a veg soup with cheese. It was a good meal.
After lunch, we walked along a balcony and saw some wonderful views of the town of Martigny which has 8 valleys intersecting in Martigny, therefore, a very important place.
We climbed up further for about 25 mins and then started descending to Col de la Forclaz (It is the same Forclaz that is sold in Decathlon).
We arrived at Col de la Forclaz at 2.15 pm. Forclaz is a mountain pass that is used as a defensive position between France and Switzerland. In World War II, Switzerland had built bunkers to defend this road. They had bunkers camouflaged as village houses. Impossible to spot. They also had a plan to flood the valley by blowing up the dams if the Nazis invaded. We had a very interesting visit to the bunker.
I ate some ice cream and the kids had some coffee at the restaurant. We left Forclaz at about 3.50 and descended for 30 mins to the town of Trient. On the way, there is an iron balcony from which we got great views of Trient. We arrived at Trient, Switzerland at 4.40 pm at the stop where the taxi was supposed to pick us up.
The taxi picked us up at 5 pm and took us to the town of Le Tour in France where we reached around 5.35 pm. We were back in Chamonix valley in France.
We checked into the bunk bed dormitory. 4 people in one room, 8 people in another. We did our dinner at 7.30 pm. Salad first course, veg pasta as second course and cake as the third course. The food was quite decent.
We finished dinner around 8.40 pm. The views from the dining area were awesome. We went to sleep around 9.30 pm.
Total time: 9 hours
Distance: 20 km
Total Ascent: 4,200 ft
Total Descent: 3,600 ft
Day 9: Thu, July 25, 2024, Le Tour, France to Argentieres, France
We started our day at 8.15 am from the town of Le Tour. We started climbing up immediately. There was a ski lift from the town of Le Tour. But we followed the path just below the ski lift. It was a continuous bus gradual climb, not very steep.
Ben, our guide, has brought his dog Snow with him. White Swiss Shepherd. Very friendly dog. All of us had a good time petting and playing with it. Snow was 10 months old and she used to keep running ahead, but always looking for Ben.
We walked for about 1.15 hrs till a Refuge area. There was a Cosmo Jazz rock concert happening that day. Lot of people had gathered for the concert. We stopped there for about 10 mins, admired the views, some took a toilet break.
We continued on for another 1 hour to Col de Balme, again the French-Swiss border, with a borderstone. We spent about 15 mins there. Ben decided to take an offbeat path again rather than the regular TMB path. We climbed a little further to a point where we could see a dam and a backwater lake reservoir in Switzerland.
From that point on, it was a descent. One option was to climb to a high point, but we decided to take a traverse where we could see beautiful views of Mont Blanc. We stopped for lunch at around 12.15 pm, ate a sandwich that Ben had bought from the local baker near his home. We were admiring the views of Mont Blanc as we ate lunch.
We spent about 45 mins for lunch and then it was a straight gradual descent to the city of Argentieres. Last part was through the forest. When we descended, we had to walk a couple of km through the town before we reached our hotel Le Dahu at around 3.30 pm.
We had shared accommodation, 5+3+4 – three rooms. Argentieres is where our guide Ben lives. He lives about 200 m from our hotel. Very pretty town. We played Antakshari and just some chitchat.
Evening dinner was at 7 pm at Bellevue Restaurant, immediately opposite the hotel.
Total time: 7 hours
Distance: 16 km
Total Ascent: 2,200 ft
Total Descent: 4,000 ft
Day 10: Fri, July 26, 2024: Argentieres -> Le Flegere -> Le Praz (Chamonix)
We were raring to go on our last day. Frankly, I had thought that it would be an easy day. But it was not to be. We started from Hotel Le Dahu at 8.05 am at an elevation of about 1,200 m.
We took a side route and entered the forest. We immediately started climbing. It was a steep climb, lots of rock faces. There were many ladders and steps embedded into the rocks. It was tiring but fun to climb.
We were on the opposite side of the Mont Blanc Massif. Hence, the views got better.
Then we reached the Cheserys Lakes. They are a group of lakes at a very high altitude. Great views of Mont Blanc. During this time, there was very little water in the lakes, so not very attractive. We reached the lakes at 11.30 am.
We stayed for 20 mins, took some pictures and then continued climbing to the Refuge at the top near Lake Blanc. We reached Lake Blanc at 12.20 pm.
It took us about 30 mins from Lake Cheserys to the Refuge at Lake Blanc. There were fantastic views of Mont Blanc. Lake Blanc was located in a great location, but again the water was a little less, so it was underwhelming. We spent time till nearly 2.15 pm, had a great lunch.
There was a Nepali Sherpa who served us. He spoke in French with other customers, but with us, he spoke in Hindi. Some people had Quiche, some Menu of the Day which was Rice and Curry. The rice and curry was not great, but it felt good to have some Indian-like food after a long time.
We left at 2.15 pm and started our descent to the cable car lift at Le Flegere. It was a gradual descent with a lot of scree, but it took us 1.15 hrs and we reached the cable car station at 3.30 pm.
There was a huge celebration as everyone came across the finish line which we had artificially drawn.
We took the cable car and were were at Le Praz, near Chamonix at around 3.45 pm. We then took the Line 1 bus to Chamonix and reach around 4.00 pm.
We were taken to the office of the Companies des Guides which had arranged our trip. Our luggage was brought there. Ben filled out our certificates and handed the certificates to us.
We then took our luggage and walked for about 10 mins to the Lykke hotel near the Chamonix train station. We reached the hotel around 5 pm.
Jai, Sagar and I went to the spa at the hotel. We enjoyed the sauna, the jacuzzi for about 45 mins. We then had our shower at the hotel room.
At 7 pm we met at the Annapurna restaurant to have some Indian food. Everyone was calorie starved and hungry. We ate paneer, bhindi, yellow dal and chicken. We ordered a lot of food but everything got finished. On the way back to the hotel, we had some icecream. I had caramel icecream.
We said final goodbyes to Chamonix.
We came back to the hotel at 9.15 pm. We slept restfully.
Total time: 7 hours
Distance: 16 km
Total Ascent: 3,200 ft
Total Descent: 2,500 ft
Departure Day: Sat, July 27, 2024: Chamonix -> Geneva -> Home
On the final day, our departures started in the morning at 6.30 am when Meenal, Neel, Monika and Srinivas left. Anu and I were the final ones to depart at 11.30 am. We took the Alpy Transfers bus from Chamonix bus station to Geneva Airport.
We boarded the Saudia flight from Geneva at 4 pm on Saturday and via Jeddah, we landed at 9.25 am on Sun, July 28 in Mumbai. TMB turned out to be a wonderful experience.
—–The End—–
Special Photo Collections from TMB
If you liked the blog, here are some special photo collection galleries that might be of interest.
Interesting Moments on the TMB
Trails on the TMB
Wildflowers on the TMB
Mountain Passes on the TMB
Villages on the TMB
Accommodations on the TMB
Peaks visible from the TMB
Meals on the TMB
