Tour du Mont-Blanc (TMB) — More Active Travel

“When you travel as an active participant, the experience can transform the way you think, and how you see the world...We all have a tendency to generalize from small samples. Our own little world becomes, without the infusion of new experiences, our frame for understanding the entire world. Travel broadens your sample set.”

- Shane Parrish Farnam Street blog

Now I think we can all agree the Italians do a great Cappuccino… but they aren’t all as good as THIS cappuccino!

View down the Chamonix valley from the Italian side

This was just one of the many, many stunning views on our 4-day mini tour of Mont Blanc with the excellent happy tracks guiding company, booked through Much Better Adventures (see trop here). We would thoroughly recommend this mini trip and we are determined to come back for the full “TMB” (Tour du Mont Blanc).

But it wasn’t just about the views, they were spectacular but focusing just on that misses the point. Being outdoors undistracted in the mountains, actively participating in your adventure, moving through a landscape, putting one foot in front of the other to get you from A to B. That’s what it’s all about.

The overview:

2 days off work
70km of walking, covering around half of the full Tour de Mont Blanc
3 countries: Italy, Switzerland, France
Moderate intensity: typical day was 20km walking with c1km of ascent
Medium to small size backpacks needed for gear and snacks (we took 65l, others used smaller).
All food and snacks provided as well as expert guiding from Happy Tracks

Day 1 - Courmayer to Rifugio Bonatti 🇮🇹

The first day was shorter than the others, having arrived at Geneva airport and taken a coach transfer to Courmayer, but the vertical metres covered and the acclimatisation meant that we were actually pretty tired arriving at the beautiful and atmospheric Rifugio Bonatti up at 2,000m.

Rifugio Bonatti namesd after the famous Italian explorer of the 1950’s Walter Bonatti

This is a truly amazing place to stay, brimming with energy and atmosphere as people from all over the world converge after a day’s trekking. Despite the remote location (no roads, everything comes in my foot or helicopter) they cooked a great dinner for 100+ hungry walkers, all served at the same time. And they have beer on tap (bring cash though)!

Day 2: Bonatti to Champex 🇮🇹🇨🇭

This was a day of contrasts as we walked through forests, across rivers and traversed snow all with barely a cloud in the sky (we were lucky with the weather!) The day ended with a well earned beer in a picturesque Swiss beer garden before a transfer by car to Champex-Le-Lac.

Day 3: Champex to Trient 🇨🇭

The day started walking through typically alpine Swiss hamlets, as we wound our way through a forest, before climbing up higher, through the Col de la Forclaz, before descending down to the beautiful village of Trient, staying at the buzzing Hotel d’Ours. Highlight was the Alpage Bovine - a spectacular mountain cabin turning out snacks and drinks with soaring views over the landscape.

Day 4: Trient to Chamonix 🇨🇭🇫🇷

A lot of climbing today as we would our way up from Trient, with great views back showing how far we’d come. Highlight of the day was Col de Baume , with spectacular views out over both Switzerland and France as well as the Mont Blanc, this is where we crossed over into France. The trip finished with the descent into the town of Chamonix.

View to the Mont Blanc from Col de Baume

What a fantastic few days, we loved it and would thoroughly recommend this trip, as well as Happy Tracks guiding company and our super-happy guide, Jack. We plan to be back to do the whole TMB (a 10-11 day trek in total).

Here’s a link to the Strava gps data.