LE GRAND TOUR. Experience the sheer beauty of the Alps on Europe s most famous mountain hike, Tour du Mont Blanc.

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1 30 GREAT WALKS ANNUAL LE GRAND TOUR Experience the sheer beauty of the Alps on Europe s most famous mountain hike, Tour du Mont Blanc. GREAT EUROPEAN WALKS TOUR DU MONT BLANC WORDS AND PHOTOS_STUART BUTLER

2 31 Leaving the Col ferret and descending down into Switzerland the scenery remains inspiring throughout this long day.

3 GREAT EUROPEAN WALKS TOUR DU MONT BLANC 32 GREAT WALKS ANNUAL ON a clear, sunny day, I m told that the view from the Col de Balme (Balme pass; 2195m) is one of flowered alpine pastures and glinting glaciers hugging Western Europe s mightiest mountains. On this day though, low clouds clung to the ridges, soaked the meadows and reduced visibility to no more than a dozen metres. Moving by sense as much as sight, I shifted hesitantly along the trail until, after a couple of minutes, the soft outline of a building sprung out of the smoky grey. It was Refuge du Col de Balme and on a day as cold as this, its promise of a warm drink and a chance to dry out was welcome indeed. Between the 18th and early 19th centuries it was all the fashion among the aristocracy and moneyed elite of England and other parts of northern Europe to travel in extravagant style around southern Europe in search of art and classical culture. It was sort of like the South-East Asian backpacking circuit of today, only with more bottles of port. In 1741 two upper-crust English gentlemen doing this Grand Tour paused for a while on the idyllic shores of Lake Geneva. As anyone who has visited the lake knows, on clear days there are magnificent views of a snow-draped mountain range off to the west. This is the French Alps, home of the highest peaks in Western Europe including the biggest of them all Mont Blanc (4810m). Today we all know the Alps as a skiing and trekking playground par excellence, but back then the Alps were still a little-known, wild land rumoured to be populated with wolves, bears and fearsome monsters of the night. Tales of blood-thirsty creatures didn t stop the views from piquing the interest of these two men though, and they set out to explore. On their eventual return to England the two wrote a newspaper article recounting their adventures in the Alps. It was written in such tones of passion that the public s imagination was lit and soon afterwards floods of visitors started to map out walking trails and attempt to summit the highest peaks. It was the birth of modern trekking and mountaineering. The world renowned Tour du Mont Blanc (normally shortened to just TMB), a 170km circular hike around Mont Blanc, is the end result of the first exploratory trails those early trailblazers laid down. Passing through some of the best scenery in the European Alps and taking in parts of three countries (France, Italy and Switzerland), it s hardly a surprise to learn that the TMB, which sees walkers hauling themselves up and down 10 vertical kilometres of height gain and loss over the 10 days it normally takes hikers to complete this circuit, is one of the most popular long-distance trails in Europe. Meet the locals Back in the cloying mists of the Col de Balme, I was discovering that the refuge here was a very different beast from the modern, comfortable and efficient refuges, hostels and hotels I d found elsewhere along the TMB. Instead of bright lighting and young, smiling staff, it had dusty shelves lined with half-drunk bottles of liquor and hand-written notices, tinged yellow by time, giving grave warnings not to eat your own picnic inside the building. Bustling about the refuge, the proprietors, a tiny elderly lady and her stern-faced husband, barked orders to hikers who d barely had time to sit down, Have you ordered anything yet? No sitting here without buying something. When a group of burly Spanish walkers committed the near mortal sin of trying to eat a sandwich they d made themselves they were swiftly

4 Far left: Perhaps the finest mountain scenery of the entire trek is reserved for the Col Ferret (2537m). Above: Parts of the trail run through forests; conifer at higher altitudes and delicious deciduous at lower levels. NEED TO KNOW Raw Travel has a choice of guided or self-guided walks in the Mont Blanc region including a 13-day self-guided walk and an 8-day supported trek. Accommodation is in small hotels and auberges with private rooms. More info: rawtravel.com. Difficulty While there is nothing technically difficult about this route, there is a lot of up and down and this can make it quite exhausting for the less trail-fit walker. Fortunately, there are frequent refuges serving food and drink. The general consensus is that it s slightly easier to walk it in an anti-clockwise direction. Navigation is easy throughout. The route is exceptionally well-signed and very clear so it would be hard to get lost.

5 GREAT EUROPEAN WALKS TOUR DU MONT BLANC 34 GREAT WALKS ANNUAL YOU CAN CHOOSE WHETHER TO KEEP THINGS SIMPLE BY TAKING A DORMITORY BED IN A REFUGE OR PAMPER YOURSELF IN A SKI HOTEL. felt like a group tour at all. The second difference to the TMB and most other multi-day mountain hikes is that the TMB route is laid out so that most evenings you descend out of the mountains and into a valley town or village. Whilst this means that you invariably have an exhausting clamber all the way back up into the mountains again the next morning, it does mean that on many nights you can choose whether to keep things simple by taking a dormitory bed in a refuge or pamper yourself in a ski hotel with spa and pool. Above: Just beyond the Col de la Seigne (2516m) an impressive mountainscape awaits as well as a descent into Italy. Above right: There s a lot of up and down on this trek and most days see you clambering steeply up to a high pass and then dropping sharply back down again. reprimanded and chased out by the lady, who was but a fraction of their size. I d already been walking the TMB for the best part of a week when I d stopped to warm myself with hot chocolate in the Refuge du Col de Balme and over the course of the past few days I d realised that the TMB, and my experience of it, was going to be a bit different to most other long-distance mountain treks I d done. For a start, I was on a small group tour organised by an Australian boutique hiking company, Raw Travel. It was the first time I d done an organised group tour walk and before setting out I d been somewhat uncertain about how I d feel walking for days with people I didn t know. As it turned out I needn t have worried, because with just four of us it hardly Getting in the rhythm The actual art of walking the TMB quickly started to follow a certain pattern. A big breakfast to build up the energy fires; a long and often quite steep ascent through forests, open pastures and finally rocky mountain wastelands to reach a high pass where we d sit out of the wind and eat a packed lunch before a more drawn out, easy-on-the-legs descent back into the valleys. Although the day-to-day pattern was the same, the scenery itself grew more impressive with every passing day. Sometimes the trail wound for hours through coniferous forests where mosses hung like curtains from branches and unseen birds sung from shaded corners. At other times the trail floated through alpine flower meadows the colour of rainbows and clouds of swallowtails, fritillaries and Red Admiral butterflies flapped lazily in the warm breeze while the sun twinkled on distant snow fields. There are some moments of the walk I recall in more clarity than others. Take the day when my morning began with my treading in the footsteps of the legionnaires of Rome as I walked sharply uphill along a still partially paved Roman road and over a domed Roman bridge. None of us will ever know if Caesar s men ever stopped to take in the mountain views along the higher stretches of that bit of trail, but I like to think that from the Col de Croix du Bonhomme (2329m), where the

6 WALK NOTES TOUR DU MONT BLANC Distance: 130km loop Time: days Grade: moderate Switzerland 7 Col de La Balme 6 France 1 Chamonix Col Ferret 5 Les Contamines 2 Mt Blanc 4 Col du Bonhomme Col de la Seigne Italy 3 5km 1. Most people start the walk from Chamonix and walk in an anticlockwise direction around the route. 2. The trail from Les Contamines up to the Col du Bonhomme follows an ancient Roman road. 3. Beautiful descent through rich pastures where shepherds are often grazing their flocks. 4. Some of the best mountain scenery of the walk from the Col de la Seigne (2516m). 5. A long, steep ascent to the Col Ferret (2537m) on the Italian-Swiss border. 6. Sharp, long climb through gorgeous old-growth forest to Col de La Balme (2131m). 7. The Grand Balcon section of the walk offers up the treks finest, faceto-face views of Mont Blanc.

7 GREAT EUROPEAN WALKS TOUR DU MONT BLANC 36 GREAT WALKS ANNUAL TMB finally veered off from this 2000-yearold trade route, that even such battle-hardened men had been inspired to stop and savour the views back down the valley and over folds and counter-folds of glacier squashed rock. NONE OF US WILL EVER KNOW IF CAESAR S MEN EVER STOPPED TO TAKE IN THE MOUNTAIN VIEWS. Meet the tourists Of course, as spectacular as the scenery was, we all know that mountain views are only a part of the reward of a long hike. Often the people you meet along the trails are as memorable as the vistas. The Tour du Mont Blanc was no exception. In fact, as one of Europe s more popular trekking routes the human encounters were perhaps richer than normal and the owners of the Refuge du Col de Balme weren t the only characters I d met on this walk. For a start, there was the American lady who, by her own admission, hadn t done any exercise in a decade and so had set herself a 40th birthday challenge of attempting (and I do so hope she succeeded) to walk the TMB (at the end of one long, exhausting day she burst into tears in relief when she finally made it to that night s refuge); and how can I forget Eric, the slightly theatrical owner of a simple refuge in a deep, shady valley who slow-cooked hundreds of pigs cheeks every evening for his guests to savour. Then there were the four young French women who bubbled in enthusiasm for the wildlife of the

8 Alps and, in order to share their delight, had set up telescopes on the edge of the trail so passing walkers could try and look for chamois, ibex and other alpine wildlife; or finally, how about the attention-grabbing group of Scouts from the UK who d pledged allegiance to God and the Queen whilst stood on the Col de la Seigne (2516m) with one foot in France and another in Italy (and the German woman who, having watched this spectacle, turned and asked me if their pledge of allegiance was something to do with Brexit and a need to create patriotism!). On the final afternoon of our walk we reached the cable cars and ski runs high above the chichi ski resort of Chamonix. The trail was suddenly filled with a diverse crew of daytrippers who d caught one of the cable cars up. There were paragliders and hikers, mountain bikers and trail runners, picnicking families, Parisian tourists and shoppers in big sunglasses and designer labels. Despite our differing holiday expectations, we d all gathered on this mountainside in order to enjoy the same views over the valley to the silent summit of Mont Blanc, the White Mountain. And as we stared I bet we all knew exactly how those first alpine pioneers must have felt when they looked up at the Alps from the shores of Lake Geneva. Below: The view from the Col du Bonhomme (2329m). Left: A swinging bridge near Les Houches. 37 For every season, there is a Hilleberg tent. nallo gt Light, strong, easy to pitch and easy to carry all-season tent with a single extended vestibule in our red label line. Available in 2, 3 & 4 person versions. Great Walks was a guest of Raw Travel (rawtravel.com) Henrik Larsson/FiskeBild.se for over 45 years, Hilleberg has been making the highest quality tents available. Designed in Sweden, manufactured in Europe, and used worldwide, Hilleberg tents offer the ideal balance of high strength, low weight, ease of use, and comfort. Order our cat alogue for more information! Australian dealers: Wild Earth Australia Burleigh Heads QLD Mountain Adventure Ctr Jindabyne NSW HILLEBERG.COM follow us on facebook.com/hillebergthetentmaker