Tour of Mont Blanc in 5 days

The trip begins in Chamonix, with an evening meal and trek briefing.

We take a bus to Tré-le-Champ, on the way up the Col des Montets.

From here, we walk to the Lac Blanc, up a series of ladders (do not worry, they are easy to negotiate and are quite short), in the heart of the Aiguilles Rouges nature reserve. 

This walk is mainly uphill, but don’t be alarmed as you will see some of the best scenery that Chamonix has to offer, including the Lacs des Chéserys.

We have lunch at the Lac Blanc.

After lunch we walk for almost an hour to the Flegère cable car, which we take down to the Chamonix valley.

From here, our taxi will take us to Les Contamines, where we’ll spend the night.

In case of bad weather, we will walk to Les Contamines instead of doing the Lac Blanc.

Today we trek up the old Roman road to the chapel at Notre Dame de la Gorge. From here it’s uphill, past the Chalet de Barme (if we’re doing well for time, it’s a perfect coffee stop!) and up to the Col de Bonhomme (2328m) for a well-earned lunch stop. We then have a gentle climb to the Col de la Croix de Bonhomme (2478m), from where we have a great view towards the Vanoise National Park. After that, we have a 2-hour walk down to Les Chapieux, and stay in a lovely chambre d’hôte, a guest house with dinner included.

We walk up the road for an hour to reach the Refuge des Mottets, from where we start the climb up to the Col de la Seigne (2516m).

Here the scenery really changes, we are in Italy!

We have fantastic views down into the Val Veny and over to the Val Ferret, and you start to see the other side of Mont Blanc and the other Chamonix
giants.

A descent past the Elisabetta hut (first Italian coffee of the trip!) takes us to La Visaille, where we take a bus down to Courmayeur.

We may stay in Courmayeur itself, or if we’re staying in the Val Ferret, we can spend a bit of time exploring Courmayeur before we take the bus to our hotel.

We take a bus to the end of the Val Ferret (Arnuva) and start the walk up the Grand Col Ferret (one of the highest cols on the trip at 2530m). We are rewarded with stunning views of the Grandes Jorasses, the Grand Combin and the Mont Dolent (whose summit is in the border of France, Switzerland and Italy).

At the top of the col we cross over into Switzerland, where the scenery changes yet again.

We continue to La Fouly, an alpine village with traditional Swiss “chocolate box” chalets. From here we take a taxi to Champex.

Today is a long but rewarding day. We take the Bovine route to the Col de la Forclaz. Then transfer from Forclaz to Chamonix.