Tour du Mont Blanc, September 2025
To celebrate my 50th birthday this month, I'm hiking the Tour du Mont Blanc, a 10 day trip counterclockwise around Mont Blanc in the Alps.
Sunday 9/7, Turin
Flew in to Rome last night/this morning, took a train to Turin, walked around some. "I was worried my cats were uncomfortable, so I adjusted the temperature settings for my condo using my phone while on a high speed train in Italy" is something I did and reminded me I'm living in the future.
Turin has a big weird tower called the Mole Antonielliana, and I'm fascinated by it.
Monday 9/8, Chamonix
Today was another travel day. I took a succession of five different trains and one bus, and now I'm in Chamonix, specifically Les Houches. I took the pictures below from the train. Tomorrow I'm hitting the trail, and I'll post actual trail pictures. Or maybe not, because it's supposed to rain for most of the day. Either way, enjoy these!
The pizza (and small glass of nebbiolo) were from lunch in Domodossola, right before I crossed from Italy into Switzerland. The final picture is the parts of Mont Blanc that weren't hidden by clouds. Some of the white is snow/glacier.
Tuesday 9/9, Les Contamines
First day on the trail! It started off rainy, but by midday the rain had stopped and the clouds had lifted, revealing some awesome views of the western slopes of Mont Blanc. I felt pretty good and made it to Les Contamines (where I'm staying tonight) around 3pm. I had a beer to celebrate.
There were some cattle grazing at one point, some quite close to the trail. It's fairly common to see livestock in the mountains in Europe.
It looks like it will rain more tomorrow, but that should be it for a few days.
Wednesday 9/10, Les Chapieux
I was prepared for this to be the hardest day of the trip. I knew I would still be somewhat jetlagged and recovering from the first day. Also the elevation gain was pretty big and there was a deadline of 4:30pm to get on a shuttle van to the place I'm staying. Lastly, rain was forecast. But I felt pretty good and was down by 2pm! And the rain was just a drizzle at higher elevations. I also met a bunch of hikers who also booked their trip through the travel group I used, and it was fun chatting with them. All in all, a good day.
Tomorrow, I cross over into Italy.
Thursday 9/11, Rifugio Maison Vielle
Today was kind of a reward for the difficult first couple days. The shuttle van dropped me off a couple miles up the valley from where I finished yesterday. I hiked up to a col and crossed over into Italy. I'm now on the south side of Mont Blanc, and fortunately the weather was good, giving me lots of views of the mountain. I got to the hut I'm staying at around 1pm, and celebrated with a big bottle of Italian beer and a big bowl of polenta. It was good to rest this afternoon. Tomorrow will be harder but I'll be staying in a nice town called Courmayeur tomorrow night.
Friday 9/12, Courmayeur
Today was probably the longest day of the tour for me, at 15 miles and over a mile of vertical gain. Fortunately, I felt good, the weather was great, and the views were amazing.
One nice thing about hiking here is the gradient is fairly gentle. I hit a stretch of about 200 meters that reminded me of Adirondack-level steepness, but otherwise it's possible to keep a steady pace and not get too tired out.
The start of today's route took me through a town called Courmayeur. It ended near a mountain "refuge" (lodge/hut), and then a short section took me down to the road. I caught a local bus back to Courmayeur, where I'm staying in a hotel tonight. Tomorrow I'll take the local bus back to near where I was, and then hike into Switzerland.
Saturday 9/14, La Fouly
Switzerland! Also, an easier day, only 10 miles and 2,700 feet of elevation gain, for which I am thankful. The Mont Blanc massif is kind of a long oval that runs southwest to northeast, and I'm near the northeastern end now.
The tourist hikers don't go this far, and I'm starting to get to know hikers who, like me, will end up in Chamonix in a few days. I also passed a couple from Colorado who were going the other way, who told me about a crepe place to try tomorrow.
Tomorrow will be the easiest day of the tour, and I'm going to talk about some of my gear.
NOTE: Because this page is getting pretty big, I'm continuing with my daily posts here.