Tour Du Mont Blanc

Les Houches, France

Sat, 07 Sep 2024 09:00:00 +0200

Chamonix-Mont-Blanc, France

Fri, 06 Sep 2024 09:00:00 +0200

Chamonix-Mont-Blanc, France

Thu, 05 Sep 2024 09:00:00 +0200

Argentière, France

Wed, 04 Sep 2024 09:00:00 +0200

Trient, Switzerland

Tue, 03 Sep 2024 09:00:00 +0200

Auberge du Mont Blanc Day 6 walking 15.4km Champex to Trient It was hard to leave Champex. The setting of the hotel in this place was unforgettable. The mountains forever changing, clouds accumulating and fading continuously creating a different mood. We walked past the lake, as the rain started to fall so on went the wet weather gear for the first time, only to come off again before the climb up to Col de Forclaz through mostly pine forests with views of distant mountains. It was all very pretty. Coming down into the small village of Trient the rain fell again, thoughts now turning to our accommodation tonight, which is an Auberge, a small room with shared bathrooms. You could say we went from the penthouse to the sh-t house!🤣 it was clean though and the evening meal not bad. What made it fun was the eight of us 4 Canadians and 2 Kiwi’s had a laugh with drinks then ate dinner together. Now we felt a little like the hard doing hikers who go from refuge to refuge sleeping in dormitories. But the beer was cheaper!

Into the pine Forrest’s

Martigny town below

Ups

Trient

Auberge

Champex, Switzerland

Mon, 02 Sep 2024 09:00:00 +0200

Champex, Switzerland

Sun, 01 Sep 2024 09:00:00 +0200

La Fouly, Switzerland

Sat, 31 Aug 2024 09:00:00 +0200

Hotel: Edelweiss Day 4 walking La Palud to La Fouly 13.5 km We cross into Switzerland today and reach the highest point of the hike 2,537m Grand Col Ferrett, so the only way is up. We took a bus for the first 10 km of what would have been a road walk. The bus rides are mostly around hairpin bends where you hope it’s one way but never is. The weather is still perfect. My leg feels much better. La Palud had a good feel about it, picturesque and the hotel was extremely friendly and fun with a tasty IPA Italian beer they refer to as red. On the descent many runners from the UTMB series were passing us in droves this time not just one or two. The first runner had already completed the whole 170 km in 19 hours and something. It is to be commended but it will all be finished by tomorrow and peace and tranquility can be returned to the trail. Just before La Fouly we stopped for a milkshake at a cafe as we were in milk country, lots of cows.

Steep climb

Lunch

Big bell on a bull

Swiss house

La Fouly

Courmayeur, Italy

Fri, 30 Aug 2024 09:00:00 +0200

Rest day in Italy Experienced the Skyway Monte Bianca ascending 3466m. What an engineering feat! Had a massage on my legs but the jury is out on the result. The buses are all free here to get around which is great. Beautiful geraniums everywhere!

Courmayeur, Italy

Thu, 29 Aug 2024 09:00:00 +0200

Les Chapieux, France

Wed, 28 Aug 2024 09:00:00 +0200

Les Contamines-Montjoie, France

Tue, 27 Aug 2024 09:00:00 +0200

Hotel: La Chemenaz Day 1 walking Les Houches to Les Contamines 13km. 8hrs A cool start to the day Warming up to 25°. We started with a cable car ride to the top of Bellevue. There is a two hour uphill road walk you can do to start but 99% of the hikers take the cable car as the rest of the day is pretty challenging, and it was! Into the forest we went but then it was up and up to Col de Tricot and the scenery was amazing, then it was down and down and down I don’t know what was more challenging and repeat! We had a great view for lunch, although it was shared by many it was really the only place at that time. I do prefer to have lunch in a solitary spot to contemplate everything. We also stopped for a pot of tea at Auberge Le Truc. Les Contamines is very pretty with typical alpine wooden houses. We picked up lunch again for tomorrow and walked through the town to the hotel.

Lunch time view

Starting point

Auberge Le Truc for a welcome cuppa

Hotel tonight

Les Houches, France

Mon, 26 Aug 2024 09:00:00 +0200

Hotel Chalet Les Campanules Just over an hour by road to Les Houches, France, we leave Switzerland behind to walk back into again later. Les Houches doesn’t disappoint with all the steep pitched roofed houses scattered in a valley of green below the Mont Blanc Massiff. This hotel is really nice and faces it all. Too early to book in the hotel we took the train to Chamonix for a look around. It’s picture perfect beautiful and was buzzing with excitement. The Ultra TMB series is on so we watched the first competitors come in from the trail run - 40km completed in 3 1/2 hours! The complete TMB run starts at midnight tonight and they run the whole thing in around 19 hours, crazy! They will be long gone by the time we start. We bought lunch supplies for tomorrow, mostly bread and cheese. We have a pre-hike meeting tonight to get maps etc. The weather is looking good.😊

Hotel

Train station

View from the train

Chamonix

Chamonix monument. They obviously went up, not around

Hotel

Les Houches, mountains covered in cloud

Geneva

Sat, 24 Aug 2024 09:00:00 +0200

Ibis Budget Airport Palexpo. After a hiccup with our final leg from Munich to Geneva, having to duck under bunting to queue jump to passport control to make our flight we finally arrived and so did our luggage surprisingly. Two nights in the Ibis budget hotel to sleep off the jet lag, no-frills clean and comfortable. Today using our tourist ticket (free transport) we caught a bus into Geneva’s main area walking around the lake and took a boat across the lake. Some early rain and a cloudy day we didn’t get the full beauty of Lake Geneva but as the clouds lifted we could see the surrounding mountains come into view. We ventured into the old town and a lovely Filipino woman noticing our ‘WTF are we’ expressions became our tour guide for about half an hour and she knew her history, going back to 15th century. She also had relatives in Perth but had never been herself. The people in general are so friendly and helpful The ESim we had downloaded for data was not activating and in retrospect we would not have met and spoken to so many people if it had been working as we would have been head down following Google Maps. Enough culture off to the mountains tomorrow.

My new boyfriend Frankenstein apparently the 1st science fiction book written by local poet Mary Shelly in 1816

The Jet d’eau

Who’s that

The longest bench Promenade de la Treille

Parc des Bastions

The old town