BRINGING YOUR HOLIDAY IDEAS TO LIFE!
Tour du Mont Blanc
The Mont Blanc Tour
By Debbie Marshall
“Climb every mountain” implored Julie Andrews, and yet I’ve always felt that upon reaching the summit your view is not of what you have just climbed, but instead of other mountains and valleys. Based on this logic, the appeal of walking around rather than up Mont Blanc was to be able to admire it from a variety of angles (along with the certainty that I’d never have the strength or ability to make it to the top!). And whilst it’s not an extreme mountain climb, the Tour du Mont Blanc is not a walk in the park either; it’s a 147km circuit around Europe’s majestic peak, passing through France, Switzerland and Italy with around 8,000m of ascent and descent, which is the equivalent of climbing Everest (although not all at once). I even found out that there’s an annual Ultra Mont Blanc race with the current record standing at a reality-defying 19 hours. But please don’t let any of this put you off! If you have a reasonable level of fitness, a love of mountain scenery and comfortable beds, and 10 days to spare, you can do a wonderful tour at a much gentler pace.
It’s possible to navigate your own way around the Mont Blanc trail with maps and guidebooks, but I’ve never trusted my sense of direction, and can see no advantage when a reputable tour operator has done most of the hard work for you. That means a detailed itinerary with every rest stop, picnic and comfortable overnight hotel carefully planned, and a full day off in the middle. It means that your baggage is transported by car, so you only need carry a daypack. And, importantly, it means you are led by an experienced guide so all you need to do is put one foot in front of the other, breathe in that fresh mountain air and enjoy the views.
Our Explore leader, Anna, introduced herself at the welcome briefing in Chamonix. An experienced mountaineer, mountain guide, first-aider, navigator, picnic maker, botanist, geologist and even therapist: she was going to need all these talents and more over the next 10 days. Anna explained that weight was very important. Not our own (far too late to do anything about that), but what we were carrying. On her most recent mountain tour, she had even broken her toothbrush in half to save 100g. That seemed a little excessive but the point was well made, and the couple of novels which I had rather romantically envisaged reading at lunch stops were swiftly removed from my pack before departure.
The next morning dawned bright and sunny, we filled our water carriers, laced up our boots and took the first excited steps of a fairly gentle introductory day which took us along the valley floor and eventually up the slopes. After walking for several hours, we reached a cosy hotel, where Anna brightly informed us that the journey would have taken only 20 minutes by car! The tour progressed the following day, crossing the border into Switzerland, and we discovered that Anna didn’t like to use the word ascent or climb. Instead, her chosen euphemism was “contouring” if it was a steep ascent zig zagging up the mountain, or “gentle contouring” for everything else. We soon got into our stride, contouring at “monk’s pace” up the hills and carefully descending. We hiked through mountain passes filled with cows and cowbells; across streams and past waterfalls where the cascading noise drowned out every other sound. We learned about the flowers of the mountains and discovered the history of the borders in World War II, when the Swiss defended themselves using fake chalets and rocks beneath which lay machine guns and artillery, with never a bullet fired. And the barracks, now a museum, high in the mountains from which the Italians fought the French. We found ourselves in the middle of the formation of the Alps themselves with the European granite on one side of the mountain, African schist on the other side, and limestone peaks in between. We encountered wildlife, from marmots peeping out behind rocks to keeping our distance from the white Patou dogs, introduced by shepherds to ward off the wolves from their sheep, but ferocious to humans too.
We greeted fellow walkers with “bonjour” in France & Switzerland, and then switched to a jolly “ciao” as we crossed into Italy at quite literally one of the high points of the tour at 2,400m. This was followed by a very long descent rewarded by Aperol Spritzes in the bar at the base. A perfect end to the first half of the tour, and we welcomed our rest day in Courmayeur, filled with pasta, pizza and ice cream. After burning all those calories, these were well-deserved treats! Food was a highlight throughout the tour, with local specialities everywhere; from homemade apricot tarts high in a Swiss refuge, to Anna’s legendary picnics, when she opened her Mary Poppins rucksack and produced a feast every day: fresh baguettes, cheeses, salads, chocolate, and even truffle and olive paste one day. We dined and slept in luxury at the aptly named Hotel Splendide in Champex-Lac, the height of Swiss sophistication, and had a much simpler meal and bed at a refuge in les Chapieux, in a spot so remote that the welcome sign said simply “no credit card, no phone, no wifi”.
The tour continued out of Italy and back into France, and Anna coaxed and cajoled us with boundless energy, humour, and compassion. At the end of 10 days, we finally arrived back where we started. Perhaps we were not quite dancing across the meadows like Julie Andrews, but the feeling of euphoria and achievement was unbeatable after a life-enhancing foot-powered journey, with new friends made and memories to last a lifetime.
Top Tip
• Use walking poles. I’d always thought poles were a sign of weakness. But not a bit of it. Poles protect your knees and hips taking up to 30% of your weight on all those contours, and the earlier in life you start using them, the longer your hiking legs will last.
• And my other tip – if you are a tea drinker, bring your own PG Tips. It’s so difficult to get a decent cup of tea in Europe. What’s more, a small plastic bag of tea bags weighs less than half a toothbrush!
Debbie Marshall Summer 2022 See Debbie's Bio here
Debbie travelled with Explore Worldwide on their 10-day Tour du Mont Blanc trip.
For more information visit www.explore.co.uk
Debbie enjoying her cup of tea! Debbie travelled with Explore Worldwide, official video above
