Tour du Mont Blanc
I jetted off to Chamonix at the end of the season to attempt to circumnavigate Mont Blanc through France, Italy and Switzerland; a trail also known as Tour du Mont Blanc. About 170km in length and 10,000 metres of elevation gain. There is an annual race, the UTMB in the beginning of September every year and it was probably as I was watching some bits of the live stream for that when I decided on the idea of hiking it. Bought myself the first tent I've ever owned and started prepping for the event. I had also never done a multi-day point to point hike before. I've camped in the past so that wasn't an issue but the logistics of carrying my tent, my sleeping bag and matt was daunting. I did one load carrying walk up Pen-y-Fan for training, should have done more. I broke the distance down into separate days and planned for about 6 days to cover the trail while also including hilly detours for more views. The official trail itself has lots of alternate sections everywhere so it's possible at times to make a decision. The most important thing was to know where the campsites are, whether they are still open and where the shops are on the way when passing through the villages as I was not going to be bringing cooking equipment.
Day 1 - Friday 17/09
I woke up early in the hostel and got my stuff sorted. I was carrying too much weight. Yesterday was the first time I put my pack on with the tent and everything and it was ridiculously heavy, definitely over 20kg. I took out the small daybag and put items of clothing I didn't need in there to leave in the hostel, but it was just light bits of clothing I left behind. Also I had to figure out how to fit everything in. The rucksack was a big 85L one, but with everything I brought along I couldn't fit all of my food and water in so I had to dangle the sleeping bag outside. The weight of the bag was worrying though. I started the hike before 9am and walked through Chamonix to ascend 1,000m up the valley on the other side. Not only was my cardio in shock fairly soon, my shoulders were in a lot of pain. Simply not used to carrying such weight. I was already regretting the route choice. I planned on doing extra peaks and poke around for fun. Well that needed reassessing. Not gonna be doing any additional bits. I always sit behind my laptop thinking I'm superman and set up ridiculous routes, just can't help it. At least it was overcast and not too hot.
Only cool part from the ascent
I think most of the breaks on the big uphill were because my shoulders were getting too painful not because of my lungs blowing out, even though it was hard work all around. Within two minutes of picking the bag up I'd be in agony again. I reached the top in total cloud cover and started the descent. The views towards Mont Blanc were absolutely magnificent at least. Every so often there would be a break in the clouds and you'd get to appreciate the size of the beauty, all snow capped. It served as a distraction from the rest of the time. I was thinking there's no way I can do this hike in six days as planned. There's no way I can do it at all. My shoulders hurt too damn much. I had some extra days before my return flight so I had some leeway. Maybe I could do it in a few extra days, but finding campsites will be an issue and wild camping is mostly illegal. Maybe I'll just do half of the hike and catch a bus back from Courmayeur or maybe I'll catch buses for sections of the route like lots of people actually do, but what kind of a failure would that be to just do half or to even step foot on any bus at all. I was trying to not think so negatively and remember that at the end of the day I'm here to do some hiking, however much that will be and that's what I'm doing. I felt a bit better and just tried to embrace it.
Mont Blanc across the valley
I reached the town of Les Houches as I descended 1,000m. This is where people often start their TMB hike so they would typically catch a bus from Chamonix to here and start their route. I checked the time and was tempted to ascend a bit more if I could as it was only 4pm. But the campsite on top might not be open as it wasn't one I had previously checked with and then I'm screwed, the other one slightly farther ahead might not be either. All the campsites were very close to finishing for the year when I checked beforehand. I decided to camp in the town and start fresh tomorrow hopefully. I had to wait around a bit until the staff turned up for the campsite to put my tent down and got some dinner from the shop and some more food for tomorrow. I rolled my legs out using my heavy duty foam roller, something that was definitely not worth the weight in my bag. I only covered 16km today which was quite poor, I was supposed to do near to 30k. Ah well, I'm here to try enjoy this and my shoulders could do with a break. Hopefully tomorrow is a better day.
Campsite, not many to share with
Total: 16.61km / 1118m elevation
Day 2 - Saturday 18/09
I woke up early to get a good start. I got some sleep during the night, but the thin €5 matt was really solid and not comfortable at all. Packing everything up took longer than expected so it was 9am again by the time I got going. I filled up my water bottles and headed up the hill. I was not feeling too bad, much better than yesterday and my shoulders were managing a little bit better. Still in an absolute world of pain but nothing compared to yesterday's discomfort. I rearranged my bag so that the tent went inside the bag closer to my back and all the food went outside the bag, held together with some of the tent strings. The weight of both was quite similar though so no idea if that made any difference. (Something I only found out a year later and looking back it, this is pretty funny. The reason my shoulders were in total agony is because my rucksack wasn't fitted correctly on me and instead of my hips taking the weight it was all on my shoulders, for the entire journey.) Anyway, I made it most of the way up this 700m ascent until the supposed trail took me straight up a soggy ski slope. I changed from my trail running shoes into my boots and got up there. The route took me over one high pass at above 2000m and then there was another hill to get up. It was another solid day but to my surprise I managed to keep pushing on and I was managing to do more than on the first day.
Glacier and the massif while heading towards Col de Tricot
After getting back down into the valley I arrived at the shop I was supposed to load up supplies from, but they must have closed early so I couldn't get more snacks. Not great, running a little low but I still had some things. A final 300m ascent to the wild camping site remained and I was feeling quite done, moaning and groaning a lot while walking the flat section and doing my daily Duolingo Spanish lesson. Completing some lessons to distract myself from the agonising discomfort I was in again by the end of the day. Gotta beat the sunset there. On the ascent I actually got chatting with some French dude in Spanish and then ended up walking with this Belgian dude Louis whom I passed just a bit earlier by the town. We were both aiming for the bivouac site so both set up camp. I did some cold water therapy on my legs in the river and Louis offered me some pasta he was cooking for dinner. This worked out pretty well for me. Also I had actually caught up to my originally planned route now since day 2 was supposed to be an exploration of nearby hills without making a lot of linear progress. Suddenly I had a lot more motivation and belief for this trek.
Day total: 25.32km / 1784m elevation
Trek total: 41.93km / 2902m elevation
Day 3 - Sunday 19/09
It was a pretty cold night of around 5 degrees. Again twisting and turning the entire night because the matt is shit but I always managed to get some sleep more in the early morning. It was raining outside so I decided to have a bit of a lie-in. Along with the rain, the mountains higher up had been covered in snow overnight. There was no snow the previous evening so that felt so weird.
3rd morning views
When I packed everything up Louis was also up and we headed on together. My original plan for today was to take a shortcut from the standard route and cut in a straight line through the mountains and get to Italy, but with this turn in weather and all the snow, yeah nah. The boots went on straight away for today, gonna get wet. I was chatting to a local lady yesterday about my shortcut route and she was quite 50/50 on whether that's doable with all this weight on my back, but she figured well you are young so... This was before the snow. I decided to stick with Louis and go the standard route, he showed me a free bivouac site on the map so we had somewhere to aim for, else it would be tricky for me to figure out where I will spend the night on the go.
Made a friend
There was another high pass to get over today. The rain had stopped when we took off, but after a while it hit us fast and only worsened from there. It was hailing, it was snowing, the wind really picked up and everything was just flying horizontally into my eyes. I was not dressed for that. Luckily there was a tiny hut for cover at the col so we squeezed in there for shelter along with other hikers already there. I changed into my warmest clothes and layered up, I was cold. We must have stayed there for a good hour, the howling wind outside sounded just terrible. We could either take easier route and head straight back down the other side, but that would mean less progress on the total route, or we could carry on and still ascend a bit higher to cut directly towards a point farther down the route as we had planned. We decided to go for the harder section with the option of turning back. So we reached above 2600m from sea level, the highest I'd been so far on the trip.
Col des Fours
I took a moment to apply some blister plasters to my Achilles because boots always give me an issue and from there we descended again. My rain cover for the bag with all the external bits was way too small so gear in my bag got wet, I got really wet and when we reached lower down I got really cold. We reached a refuge and they said they do have beds available. I decided to stay in the refuge for the night because I was so cold and wet. Really couldn't imagine anything worse than having to pitch the tent and get in there with all my wet stuff. Also I could now get all my wet gear in the dry room. Dinner and breakfast sorted, better night sleep, I needed this after this horrendous day. Louis was gonna go camp but after I stayed he decided for the refuge as well. Also there was this Israeli dude Eran staying here whom I met in my hostel in Chamonix before starting the hike. He had started from Italy and was already half way through the hike when we met in Chamonix and he left a day before I did. Mad bumping into him like that. Staying in this particular refuge was a total spur of the moment progression. After the difficulty I ran into today, I was just grateful I made some good decisions and didn't try my mental shortcut all by myself. That might have been the last for me.
Day total: 15.74km / 1237m elevation
Trek total: 57.67km / 4139m elevation
Day 4 - Monday 20/09
I was feeling super fresh and strong. All my kit was pretty dry, the sky was blue and I was ready to go. My body had become accustomed to the weight on my back and my shoulders, although still painful, were not that noticeable anymore. I put the lighter trail shoes on again and left the refuge with Louis and Eran to head up to the col splitting France and Italy. Another push to 2500m, super excited to hit country no.2.
French-Italian border crossing
Eran was on his final day and motivated but the trek had fatigued his legs enough so once in Italy, Louis and I shot off ahead up some more hills. That was also where the weather worsened again. The rain picked up and after a while we stopped at a refuge for some cover and lunch. I treated myself to a large pasta dish and a beer. It became déjà vu, staring outside the window waiting for the rain to calm down.
Peeking marmot
But it didn't really, so eventually we made a move again. At least it wasn't as cold this time. We headed downhill to the bigger town of Courmayeur and grabbed more food from the shop. This was the half-way point of the tour, in case I wasn't gonna make it round the entire trek and I could get the bus back from here through the tunnel. But I was feeling good. One day behind original schedule, but I had three days spare. We got to a campsite a little after dark, but we couldn't see anyone there so we just set up for the night. Another cold night awaited.
Day total: 30.24km / 1579m elevation
Trek total: 87.91km / 5718m elevation
Day 5 - Tuesday 21/09
I woke up to the nicest morning views of the trek. Also the forecast from today onwards was for full sunshine so hopefully we had endured all the cold rain. But every morning was cold, this was the coldest one. I went to find the toilet and realised the campsite was shut for the season, hence nobody was there.
Sun is up, time to go
I grabbed some toilet roll and had the most scenic shit and started packing up. My fingers were freezing, had to get a move on. Lucky for us we had to get back on top of the ridgeline so we warmed up fast. These mountains were just insane, the best views of the trek.
Best views of the trek in my opinion
At one point there was a road block and this Italian farmer and his dog Diego were getting all the cows straight up the hill. There was a lot of mooing and protesting from the cows. I was just impressed a tonne of meat could even mooove up such gradient.
Roadblock
The route stayed flat for a while so we could really take in the views until a short descent before the big uphill of the day to the Swiss border. Before the uphill we took a break for lunch and also spread all our gear around the steel handrails of a closed refuge to dry everything off. It was really windy and some other trekkers almost lost their tent and things which flew off the side, but they managed to get them back.
Drying my kit
The ascent was solid, another peek to 2500m metres and then straight down. I had my first gel on this uphill. I'd managed pretty well so far, still carrying the ten gels I originally brought.
Looking back towards Italy from the Swiss border
There was some snow on the Swiss side when coming down and it was so slippery in my trail shoes, but the route was safe and the snow didn't last for long. We were both really spent and it only hit us on the downhill. We took a few breaks and drank lots of water but fatigue sometimes just creeps in. The top of my ankle got a little sore on this descent. It's a similar pain that I've had before and it can get quite bad, hopefully it will be alright for tomorrow. It was another big day and we reached the village for the camp site a little before sunset. Before checking in we got more supplies from the shop and then pitched up. The desk for the campsite was just shutting so Louis paid for his stay since he was gonna jump on the bus early the following morning to skip a bit of the route. It cost €28 just to put his tent down for the day. Mental prices here, but I guess it was an awesome location just below the glacier. Also there was a social hut where I could charge my power bank, it had kept me going this entire time.
Glacier view
Day total: 24.21km / 1440m elevation
Trek total: 112.12km / 7158m elevation
Day 6 - Wednesday 22/09
Another nice sunrise view of the Mont Blanc massif. I grabbed some food and packed up. Saw Louis just about to leave and bid him farewell, then went to pay and it came out there was a misunderstanding and the €28 last night was for both of us. That explained the price, I managed to catch Louis before the bus came and settled the bill.
Another beautiful day
When I took off I actually put my trackies and hoody on for the first time as it was a cold morning as always and there was a long flat section with not much ascent to begin with. My ankle had not gotten much better overnight and was actually quite painful. I felt it shooting some pain every single step. Shit, that's not great. I caught up some Israeli soldiers who I'd spoken with in the social hut last night and they invited me over for some coffee. Not a huge fan of coffee but why not, they were bragging how one of the three makes amazing coffee and yeah it was nice. Those guys were on a mad dash, having done two 40km days back to back and were now gonna have an easy day. This route carried on downhill through some scenic Swiss villages and then up through a forest until reaching Champex - the town with a big lake. For some reason this 15k part to Champex is often skipped by trekkers as it's supposed to be quite boring. I really don't agree with that, the villages had cool wooden houses and some built around big boulders, the forest was also full of carved animal figures and the trail went past a cave.
Champex-Lac
In Champex I got some cash out and since the shop was shut for another hour I decided to not wait around and have lunch at the restaurant instead. We're in Switzerland, I didn't want to spend too much but am I glad I stayed. The €30 set meal was one of the best meals I've ever had. Such a tasty meal with an incredible lakeside view, totally worth it. Also I really needed the calories for the next push. By the time I finished eating the shops were just about to open so I bought some snacks and headed off.
Lunch by the lake
From here it was just a huge 1,000m ascent cutting straight up to the col and then it would descend back down again for the tiny village with the campsite for the night. On my way up some guy, looked like a local not a hiker, asked me where I'm heading and I mentioned the name of the village. He waved his hand around hesitantly. OK, not sure what he meant but he didn't seem too sure about my plan. Not sure whether I'll make it up before sunset? Not sure whether I'll make it at all? There was another 14km or so to go and five hours left until sunset. I was making really good progress, until I wasn't. After ascending 600m feeling really great, the fatigue suddenly caught up with me. I took a gel and some water but the usual perk up didn't happen. I had some snacks, nothing. I had another gel, still nothing. What's going on? How is it possible to be feeling so shit all of a sudden after taking all these calories in. My progress slowed substantially and I had to keep having rests constantly. I felt like I was moving up slowly but the altimeter on my watch wasn't really changing. This 400m of remaining ascent had barely reduced to 300m after I don't know how long. Some hours later I had 200m left to go up, but the trail had gotten much more technical and rocky and I was really on my last legs here. It had become so difficult to keep ascending that at his point I was wondering whether this is the hardest physical thing I've ever done. I was getting Mount Teide vibes from Tenerife again. I felt like my physical limit is being tested and maybe I don't have enough in the tank to get over this pass. The edge of the high pass was not getting any closer. I had to start thinking of plan B in case I can't keep going. The only option would be to go all the way back down to Champex, find some accommodation and then try again tomorrow (or I suppose could illegally wild camp somewhere not as far down but I'm not carrying enough food). I had some more of my nutella snacks and put the music on, swallowed another gel and some more water and that 200m barely dropped down to 100m. Just 100m to go, I had so much time before and I wasn't sure I'd make it over the ridge before sunset anymore. This is not a place to be in the dark, the trail is too technical to navigate with a head torch. I think I had the answer to why that guy was shaking his hand at me earlier. I didn't start my day from Champex, I did all that extra part as well. I forget I'm carrying a heavy bag and somehow still moving strong. But this was the lowest of the low. I was so done. I had another bigger break with some nutella biscuits and another gel. Finally I got second wind and the motivation from being so near carried me over the final 100m. I reached the col with 45 minutes to go until sunset. Time to make good ground before it gets totally dark. Thankfully the descent on the other side was not as technical and I could move pretty fast.
Sun going down
Downhill felt so easy and I was mostly running. I had totally forgotten about my ankle pain as well, that had stopped at some point during the big ascent. Great! Maybe I'm all good. I ran as fast as I could with the pack to get as far down as I could from the mountain. I made it about half way down when it was time to get the head torch out, but not to worry, the trail was pretty nice by here. I finally made it down to the campsite just after 9pm. The office was shut but there were a Swiss guy and a Peruvian girl hanging around a table. I looked totally exhausted. The guy offered me some wine which I very gladly nursed down. We stayed there for a little while chatting away until it was time for bed. I still had to set up my tent and then it was time to get some rest, I'd earned it. The biggest day and I made it.
Day total: 32.47km / 1731m elevation
Trek total: 144.59km / 8889m elevation
Day 7 - Thursday 23/09
This was the best night sleep I had the entire trip. I wonder if it was the wine. I booked my hostel for Chamonix as I knew it should be another two days until I get back. I booked the same place I stayed in before I started, they had a sauna and a jacuzzi there. Man that will feel unreal to get in there with a beer in my hand once I'm done. It was time for breakfast. There was a big yurt where you could get an all you can eat breakfast. Oh my god. I ate as much as I possibly could, it all tasted amazing. Yogurt, porridge, cheese and ham sandwiches, juice. Then there was one nearby shop which I went to for supplies which were pretty much gone. I had forgotten that Champex should be a major filling up point as after that there isn't much for a while. This tiny unmanned shop only had a load of frozen meat and some yogurts. So I ended up buying like four yogurts because that's all I could get.
Breakfast yurt
Lucky for that huge breakfast, the yogurts should get me over the next hill. I was still on the fence whether I should go over the next pass to France and down and then do majority of the mountain after that, a pretty difficult day but that would result in an easy final day, or whether I should just have an easier day today instead. Of course I wanted to just keep pushing so my final day could be easy, but after six days of serious work and especially yesterday I decided it is sensible to tone down a bit today. Just get over into France. So I went ahead and booked the campsite and packed my stuff up. The ascent to the French border and the top of the pass was 850m straight up, so by no means lightwork. Yet another big climb like every other climb. I took a much more relaxed pace than before and was soon pretty happy about having an easier day. So relaxed that even when I sat down to catch a break I couldn't be bothered to stop my watch. I was just sat there like nope, let it run, doesn't even bother me. It was great to be having nice weather for the remainder of my journey. I was happily thinking how easily just walking the world with a backpack could be a lifestyle for, who knows maybe indefinitely. Pretty cheap, you see so much nature and you keep fit. It felt incredible looking back towards the first few days and thinking how much I was struggling, how badly my shoulders were aching (they still ached every day but it had become tolerable). I reached the col and had some yogurts. France awaits. There's a direct route down but I had planned to bag another summit so that meant another dip down and a 200m ascent. Funny enough, I think this happened just before I reached the border to have some food and take a break, but my previous chill feeling of, 'it would be cool to just keep hiking' was totally gone and all of a sudden I was totally over hiking. A change of heart came on real fast and all I wanted was to be at my destination. I was exhausted, I had ascended this 850m very casually and yet I felt pretty destroyed. That's probably why rest days are a thing. That 'little' 200m ascent for the summit was a pain, it was windy and I wasn't really enjoying it. The view was pretty cool but I didn't care that much, my legs hurt too much.
View definitely getting me through it
Only 800m to descend, then I'm at the campsite. It was a drag but it got better as I made my way down. Final few hundred metres were actually enjoyable. I had some pumping beats playing on my iPod and I ran past this couple having their picnic yelling out some song lyrics punching the air. Fuck yeah, almost rolled my ankle while getting so carried away and running as fast as I could. Made it to the campsite and set my stuff up. They did dinner in the restaurant but it was pretty expensive. I decided to grab a beer and headed to the nearby town for some supermarket dinner and supplies. It was a bit of a trek but at least I didn't have my bag for this. I bought way too much lasagna, not realising how fat stacked it was, so I went ahead and ate all 800 grams as well as other things. This was during my walk back because I was so hungry I couldn't wait until I reached the campsite. Once I got back I took a shower. Time for the bad news. My ankle had been alright all day, but only then I noticed that it was really swollen and felt pretty sore. Not really sure how an entire of walking was just fine but in reality it had been getting worse and all of a sudden it was not happy at all. I left my powerbank to charge in the hotel and went to bed after rubbing some ibuprofen gel on the ankle.
Day total: 14.26km / 1058m elevation
Trek total: 158.85km / 9947m elevation
Day 8 - Friday 24/09
Ankle was slightly less swollen in the morning, applied more gel. Final day let's go. Almost another 1000m to go up and then some more. Ankle was actually holding up alright. Blue skies dominated again and the Mont Blanc views were getting better and better. I reached one cool part of the route where you get to climb up lots of ladders. After getting up a few they seemed to stop and I thought that was that but they just kept on coming.
Some of the large number of ladders
I was moving faster again today and overtaking other hikers, but not as fast as some previous days. The trail reached Lac Blanc at the highest point and I took a break there. From here there was going to be a lot of undulating up and down terrain at this elevation. My ankle started hurting more as I started doing some of the descents and I felt pretty over it again.
One of the lakes before Lac Blanc
I decided to take a longer sunbathing break and just pass out on the grass to some music. Must have been there for an hour. When I decided to get moving again, it was pretty clear. My ankle hurts, I can't be bothered. I'd like to carry on along the ridge and finally descend the same 1,000m section which I ascended on the first day. That would effectively mean that I have completed the entire loop as well as having ascended and descended 1,000m extra which was bascially my first day of hiking in eight days. Then I could say with truth that it took me seven days to actually complete the loop itself, but I would have to reach that same point and descend from there for that. But ah well, I didn't care much for that. Seven days, eight days, whatever. My ankle really hurt, I just wanted it over with so I decided to just take the most direct route down to Chamonix instead. Would have been nice to stay above 2,000m for longer for the views, but I was done, need to get down. I was lucky as it is that it was the final stretch and my ankle didn't become more of a problem before. 10k to the hotel, just think of the beer in the jacuzzi. The descent was slow but in the majority it followed through the woods. This gave some shade from the Sun and was interesting too. I was lucky I was walking with my headphones off occasionally because at one point I started hearing some loud hissing, which got louder and then louder and more aggressive. Like a snake yet I didn't see anything. Then this fat black snake crossed the path pretty close in front of me and started rolling off the edge of the steepening slope. If I had my headphones on I would have walked a bit faster and possibly right into it. I was too zoned out to notice it.
Snakes and ladders
This was the final highlight, the descent eased off but carried on for a while until I was at the outskirts of Chamonix. There were lots of paragliders shooting through the sky. I was keen to have a go also, but little did I know that today was also the last of the nice weather and from the next day the wind and rain became and issue. I walked through Chamonix centre, like some victorious adventurer returning from his quest. Man what a feeling. I've only gone and bloody done it. I stopped off at the shops to grab some beers and snacks and headed to the hostel for an evening of jacuzzi and sauna. Some French dudes were already there so got chatting with them. Beers were going down like fine wine, I took full advantage. I had a reason to smile. Some adventure that.
Not bad for a hostel
Day total: 18.02km / 1015m elevation
Trek total: 176.87km / 10962m elevation
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