Tour du Mont Blanc :: Wrap Up

Below is a journal I kept of our two week Tour du Mont Blanc (TMB) organized by Exodus. You want to start at the first entry and read your way to here in order for it to make any sense.
The TMB is one of the classic alpine walking trails, and I’d whole-heartedly recommend it to [...]

Tour du Mont Blanc :: Getting Home

Time to go home! Up at 06:00, we packed up everything for the last time, loaded up the van and had breakfast. At 07:00, we left the campsite, said our goodbyes to Liz and got on the bus with Charlie and headed down to Chamonix to pick up the hotel group.
The journey to Geneva airport [...]

Tour du Mont Blanc :: Rest day, Traversing the Vallee Blanche

Our last day, and supposed to be a rest day. Janina, Vanessa, Catherine and I were up at the usual 07:00 along with Liz and Charlie as we were all off (not together) to the glaciers for the day. After a quick breakfast, the three girls and I headed off to les Praz where we [...]

Tour du Mont Blanc : les Houches to les Praz

Up bright and breezy for our last days walking. After breakfast, where Brian managed to eat some of last night’s dessert, we headed off out of the campsite, across a river and climbed through the forest to the animal park at Merlet. After a quick break we started up the steep path towards the summit [...]

Tour du Mont Blanc :: Contamines to Les Houches

The usual deal. Up early and packed everything up. Luckily, though, we could actually see the surrounding mountains and, although the sun wasn’t over the ridge yet, we could tell that is was going to be a nice day. Once we were ready, Charlie sent us off to meet in Contamines so that some of [...]

Tour du Mont Blanc :: Contamines Rest Day

Our second rest day. Given that it was still raining and miserable, Janina, Vanessa, Felicity, Catherine and I decided we’d go into Contamines to look around the morning market, go to the tourist office to try and get information about doing a glacier walk from Chamonix and then get a bus to St. Gervais in [...]

Tour du Mont Blanc :: les Chapieux to Contamines

Early rise to damp and cold after rain overnight. Once we’d gone through the usual morning routine, we started the climb to the Col de la Croix du Bonhomme.

Val Ferret
We started off in wetgear because it was raining a little, but soon took that off as the weather seemed to clear and the ascent was [...]

Tour du Mont Blanc :: Val Veny to les Chapieux

Up early and packed up too efficiently again. Poor Charlie and Liz, after several months of this and neither exactly morning people, probably groaned every morning when they saw us up and about and ready and waiting for our breakfast before the agreed upon 08:00.
Off we went along the road to Lac de Combal. This [...]

Tour du Mont Blanc :: Planpincieux to Val Veny

This morning, we were up again before 07:00 and ready to get back into the business of walking around the Mont Blanc Massif. This was by far the coldest morning, and we all stood about freezing once we had everything packed up.
By 09:00 we set off along an unmarked path up to a col on [...]

Tour du Mont Blanc :: Courmayer Rest Day

Our first rest day. Had a lie-in until all hours, getting up at 07:30. For once, though, we didn’t have to roll up the sleeping bags and mats, pack the bags and take down the tents, which was a great treat. Once we’d had breakfast, we split up into smaller groups to head off for [...]