Tmb

Tour du Mont Blanc Worth the hype, with the caveat you should take alternates. We took lots of scenic alternates. The alternates are extremely quiet. While we didn’t stay/sleep off the main TMB route, walking most days without the crowds is probably a big part of why I would recommend this. We did not take any cable cars We did not make any reservations in advance. If you camp, particularly outside of the high season (after August 31), there is no need to make advance reservations. It would also be a route that is very amenable to running and staying in huts, like the Alta Via 2. You could still take all the alternates, which I believe are much more scenic than the pure, TMB, but you would want to book accommodation in advance, even out of high season. The variants we took, in the order we took them: Variante de la Fenêtre d’Arpette (out of Champex-Lac) GR Lac Blanc (to see Lac Blanc) Variante Col De Tricot (out of Chamonix, also view of glacier) Variante du Col des Fours (where we bagged a peak. Super quiet relative to the rest of the day) Variante de la Tete Bernarda/Mont De La Sac High Route (the best day of the TMB. See the last point for more info about this.) The locations we stayed in, in order. Note, we went counter-clockwise: Stayed in Martigny, Swizterland the night before. Took trains and buses to Champex-Lac to start the TMB. Bivouac du Peuty (€8/person) Bivouac at Refuge de la Flégère (free) Camping Bellevue in Les Houches (€20 for 2 people) Bivouac at Refuge de Miage (free) Walked to La Ville des Galciers and took a bus to Les Chapieux and stayed at Bivouac des Chapieux. (€5 donation/tent) Camping Grandes Jorasses (walked into Courmayeur, bussed to campsite). The buses are free in this town. We would stay 2 nights at this campsite We bussed to the campsite at the end of the day and bussed back to town at the beginning of the next day to resume hiking Camping Grandes Jorasses. We took the free bus from the end of this day back to the campsite. Tomorrow we would take the bus in the opposite direction, back to the end of this day. (€55 for 2 people for 2 nights) Walked back to Champex-Lac. Took a bus and some trains to stay in Martigny, Switzerland before resuming the WHR after waiting out a day of rain. It is probably easiest and most recommended to start and finish in Les Houches, the small town near Chamonix. We resupplied in Martigny, Switzerland ($$$), Les Houches, France (outside Chamonix, $), and Courmayeur, Italy ($). Some people seemed to primarily eat out, but the food near the campgrounds seemed medicore. France and Italy are much cheaper for resupplies than Switzerland. We should have taken the main route from Le Peule (after Grande Col Ferret) not the road/my GPX track. The scenery is so good. If you only have 1 day, the day out of Courmayeur was probably my favorite. You can stay in Courmayeur, or at a nearby campground, and, hiking counter clockwise, take the Mont de la Sax High Route/Variante de la Tete Bernarda. Take the trail all the way to the Hôtel Chalet Val Ferret, where you can take the free bus back to Courmayeur. You can do this day in either direction. Walker’s Haute Route Hard pass, man. Skip this shit. There are some good views, which you can do in 2 separate day hikes: Lac de Louvie: take a cable car from Le Chable up to the top near Mont Fort. Walk the balcony to Lac Louvie. Stay at the hut there or sleep in one of the abandoned buildings, like we did. Cabane de Moiry: bus to Lac de Moiry. Walk up towards the glacier to Cabane de Moiry and spend the night at the cabane. Leave Switzerland the next day. Overall, the WHR is not worth doing. Save your money, and go elsewhere or just do a few day hikes in Switzerland and then get out of there. I think the best thing Switzerland makes is advertising for Switzerland. They’ve bamboozled us all into thinking it is worth our time and money. It’s nice, just not for the price.

So we got new neighbors last night at the campground and while these ones were much quieter, someone had a very loud sleeping pad that we could hear each time someone rolled over in the night. This morning it seemed like so many people around us were coughing with some illness. I was glad we were outside in our own tent. I really don’t want to get sick. For a few days Zoë had a cold, but she managed to get over it pretty quickly and still do all the hiking. ...

We had an unideal neighbor last night. The guy continued talking at full volume in his tent well after it was dark. His companion wasn’t so loud, but he never caught on. And then he snored loudly. Thankfully he packed up in the morning so although we’ll be here another night, at least we’ll get to roll the dice with a new neighbor. It rained a bit in the early morning. We closed our tent doors. We have a habit of sleeping with them open. It means there’s more air flow, less chance of condensation, and less wear on the zippers when we get in and out of the tent, which seem to be particularly problematic on Durston tents. Anyway we closed the outer doors, but we didn’t do much else. Unfortunately water made its way into our tent, which we realized after we woke up, because it wasn’t optimally pitched, which is a thing with these ultralight tents. We also had the groundsheet protruding a bit, which acted as a funnel to pull water under the tent. We’ve got rain forecasted on Wednesday so we need to be better prepared. ...

This morning we got a nice taste of French bureaucracy. So yesterday when we took the shuttle to the campground, we checked the earliest departure time the next day, which was 7:30 from the campground. It was a little later than we normally leave but fine. So today we woke up and since we knew the shuttle was small, lined up early to get on the 7:30 shuttle. 45 minutes early. There wasn’t much of a line. When the shuttle arrived and we tried to board, the driver told us to wait, while everyone else with white tickets was allowed to board. Ours were blue as they were purchased from the bus driver the day before. Evidently the white tickets were timed bus tickets so all those people had reserved a spot on the 7:30 bus. Our tickets could only be used after everyone with reservations arrived or didn’t show up. So the blue tickets we purchased yesterday were inferior to these white ones which you could only purchase from the machine at the campground. And get this, apparently there was a way for us to go into the office when it was open, yesterday, and exchange our blue tickets for white ones for the following day but guess who told us this? The same fucking bus driver who said, sorry there’s no room left on this bus you’ll have to wait. There is no signage indicating this, the bus driver yesterday didn’t do anything to explain any of this, and the bus driver today just repeated, what I imagine he has to repeat EVERY FUCKING MORNING, to people like us. But no, it’s not “his fault” it’s just “the rules.” He doesn’t make them, he’s just enforcing them. The fact that he hasn’t taken any initiative to fix what must be such an obvious, daily issue makes him, in my mind, just as much of a problem as this entire stupid, hidden reservation system. I’m glad we stood around for 45 minutes, to be rejected on a bus that we paid for yesterday, only to be driven downhill. We angrily walked the 3 miles back up the road to start our day. Screw them and their shitty bus system. Make a damn sign you lazy sacks. ...

We had a nice campsite near a creek. The tree overhead obscured our view of the glacier, but that’s one thing I never understood. Whenever I’m in my tent, I’m basically sleeping or going to sleep and never admiring the views outside. So I never understood people’s obsession with giving their tent a good view. I’ve also had the experience that the best views usually come with the worst conditions (wind). Anyway I slept great but apparently someone showed up at 11:30 and shined their headlamp everywhere, according to Zoë. ...

Well our plan worked pretty well today. We woke up, had breakfast at our campsite, left everything in our tent, and took all our warm clothes with us to the bus. We rode the bus for 30 minutes from Les Houches to Chamonix, where we purchased a one way lift ticket and met our paragliding guides. As we rode with them up the ski gondola, they conversed with each other in French. Zoë would later say, it was totally fine, but very French and not American where they are very service-oriented, trying to earn a tip. At the top, our guides basically found a free spot to lay out the chutes, strapped us in, and told us to run. Before we took off, my guide pointed out another paraglider and told me she was the world champion in paragliding acrobatics. Pretty cool. ...

Last night we had a nice sunset with an artificial lake providing some photogenic reflections. After snapping some photos though, I went straight to bed. We woke up at 6, in the dark. There were quite a few tents around the lake with us. We left at 7 and headed up the nearby hill where a ski lift topped out. Like the other days, the trail was pretty quiet at 7:00. There were a few people out, but not many. We traversed ski areas, so aside from the nice mountains above us, our immediate surroundings were a bit lackluster. ...

I think I fell asleep around 18:30 last night. I was wiped. I think the transit before the hike must have done me in. Before I passed out, I talked with some TMB hikers. They’re about finished with their loop. Zoë learned more from them after I went to bed but it seems like even amongst the campers, which is who we talked to yesterday, it is uncommon to carry most or all of your food. It sounds like most people were eating meals at restaurants and buying snacks for the next day, one day at a time. I also think, it’s many people’s first backpacking trip. Props to them though, picking something this tough. ...

Well another day, another trail. And a new country. Allow me to fill you in on what you missed. Today is Tuesday. We finished hiking the Alta Via 2 on Saturday afternoon and spent a night in Feltre, Italy. We spent most of Sunday traveling via train, to Martigny, Switzerland. We spent Sunday and Monday night at a campground in Martigny and today we woke up and took trains and a bus to Champex Lac to start our next hike. ...