The Impressive Tour of Mont Blanc… 11 Months Ago!

Well, I’ve been procrastinating a bit! It was 11 long months ago that my husband Bill and I began the impressive, amazing, transformative and challenging Tour of Mont Blanc. I’m sure most of you know this trail, but let me refresh your memory and inform those who are curious. This magnificent route, 174 km long, will take you on a magnificent hike around the largest mountain in Western Europe, Mont Blanc.

It passes through France, Italy and Switzerland, with views of neighboring peaks and glaciers.

Hike through lush green valleys and forests, climb relentlessly up and down mountain passes, and marvel at the charming towns and cities you pass through.

We start at the most common entry point for hikers, the small town of Les Houches in France, although you can start wherever you want. We flew into the airport in Geneva, Switzerland, enjoyed a few days catching up on the time change in lovely Evian, France, and then headed back to the airport, where we claimed our reserved seats on the Mountain Drop Offs bus. This took us directly to Les Houches. Many hikers = many support services.

Although there are some campers, the majority of those who hike the TMB choose to stay in the fantastic lodges/lodges/lodges dotted along the trail. However, it is difficult to get reservations. I started working on this nine months in advance, first joining the Facebook group where other hikers share how they managed to get reservations and new members ask their questions. There are also companies that can book you accommodation, which certainly makes things easier, but it costs more. Months later, I was very happy when I had all my reservations lined up, some hostels, some hotels. The photos below show some of the places we stayed.

It looks like there are a lot of people in the bunks, and it is, but I find it a lot of fun chatting with new people and learning how to keep your belongings organized and compact. Earplugs are a great idea.

Returning to the trailhead, we started the day by hiking to the trailhead, but decided to take a cable car to the top of the first slope, as recommended by other hikers in the Facebook group.

The first few kilometers would have been a rough start on a ski slope with no views. We wanted to protect our knees from the start and save them for the more scenic things. As they say, “Walk your own hike,” and many TMB hikers choose to take a cable car, as we did on three occasions. To each his own. Almost everyone’s knees eventually paid the price for those endless mountain passes.

Once we started walking, the views were already beautiful. We went through forests with many other hikers around us, many groups with guides. Being there at the end of July, the trail was crowded, but after a while, the people spread out more. Everyone was courteous.

On day 1 we covered approximately 13 miles, during which the trail made us work hard, with 5,000 feet of incline and 4,300 of descent. We soon learned who was the fastest uphill (Bill) and the fastest downhill (me). The person who was faster would stop and wait from time to time so that the other could catch up. It worked. Walk at your own pace.

Day 2 was only 11 miles, but it was very hard for us. As we crossed our first major pass, a cold, lashing rain fell along with its wind and we walked over jagged rocks. It was hard to see, but luckily there was a group ahead of us with their guide leading them, so we struggled behind them and finally managed to cross the pass after carefully walking across a fast-moving stream (scary!) and reached a shelter, where everyone spent a lot of time having lunch, also escaping the cold and wet option. Very happily, as soon as we started to go down from there towards the refuge where we would stay, the weather improved a lot. We had weathered the worst weather of our entire trip on day 2. Definitely no photos were taken in that situation. The following photographs were taken elsewhere in the TMB.

Piles of stones made by hikers are called cairns and are especially useful for following the trail in a rocky area, especially when walking among the clouds.

I could easily make this post much, much longer, wanting to share as many details about the TMB, and elaborating being my style. But now I’m going to condense it more (maybe), letting the photos tell the story.

We really enjoyed staying at the lodges, meeting a wide variety of people from all over the world, and enjoying meals together. Surprisingly, the shelters had vegetarian options, which my husband ate and I chose.

As you may know from my previous posts, I follow what is called a whole food, plant-based way of eating. I specifically follow Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn’s program to prevent and reverse heart disease, as I have genetically high cholesterol and a history of heart attacks in our family. Before all my walks, I dehydrate all my meals and prepare my snacks, which consist of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes/beans, some seeds and NO oil, salt or sugar (“SOS, free”). It sounds very selective and it is compared to modern food culture, but I feel very good and am confident that it will extend my health and, hopefully, my life expectancy. I’m so grateful that Bill joins me in eating WFPB too, but not as selectively as I do. I envy your low cholesterol level.

On this hike, we hired a luggage transport service to deliver our dehydrated food to two of our hotels along the way, so we didn’t have to carry 12 days’ worth of food. Everything went very well. If you’re curious, check out one of my previous posts about this way of eating. I also have a Facebook group called Heart Healthy Hiking, where I share more information about dehydrating foods for the trail. I highly recommend eating plant-based foods for the health of you, your animals, and our world, as it takes much less water and fuel to raise plants than animals.

We took a day off mid-trip (Day 5 of 12) in the Italian city of Courmayeur. We enjoyed eating on our small balcony with views of the city and mountains beyond.

On our day off, we enjoyed going up the cable car near Mont Blanc, who preferred to hide behind the clouds most of the time.

It was fun poking around the small supermarket to see the different items on the shelves. Certainly lots of pasta and, surprisingly, rice cakes, which are one of my favorites even though they are low in sodium.

I enjoyed seeing if I could make a raw vegan meal and save my planned dehydrated lunch for another day (I cold soak my dehydrated meals for a few hours in a covered container that I carry with me). I didn’t have a microwave at my disposal, but I was very happy to find vacuum-sealed cooked potatoes with no added salt. The rest was raw.

I was very happy to eat pizza one night in the country that originated it. Our waiter spoke perfect English and understood me well when I asked that they not spread the pizza crust with added oil, as is often done (also in the US), and that they hold the cheese. Normally I eat whole grains, such as brown rice, oats, whole wheat flour, etc., for their fiber, but in this case white flour was the only option. It was delicious and I had no problem eating it all in one sitting. Hungry walker!

Each country had its own route markers for the TMB: red and white for France, yellow arrows or yellow and black diamonds for Italy, and the same diamonds in Switzerland.

We could collect and filter water from streams and these collection points for hikers.

We were getting closer and closer to Mont Blanc on the French side, home to the bustling city of Chamonix, and our destination, Les Houches, was not far away. But the OST wasn’t done playing with us yet. In the following photos, it looks scary, but the trick is not to look down, so it’s fun. And so it was.

After all that, we decided we’d had enough of this kind of fun for today. Knowing that the descent to Les Houches, where our luggage and hotel were waiting for us, we knew how hard that steep descent would be on our suffering knees at this point. Our choice was to take a cable car to the town of Chamonix, followed by a bus to Les Houches. We congratulate ourselves on our wisdom. 😉

What a great experience we were able to share!

So do it! But take your knee pads, just in case….

I’m taking mine on my next international walk, which is in three weeks. Check back to Trek for my next report, hopefully before 11 months pass!