Hiking the Tour du Mont Blanc

Somehow this blog has (d)evolved into just being about hiking and buying Teslas, but here we go. Ten years ago some of my good friends Todd and Elaine organized a hike around Mont Blanc. There's a famous route called the Tour du Mont Blanc, which takes the hiker through three different countries across 100 miles of mountain passes. I can't remember exactly why I didn't go, but I vaguely remember having a trip either right before or after the dates, and deciding it wasn't worth trying to do both.

When I saw the pictures after the trip, I realized I had made a mistake. The trip looked absolutely amazing and I immediately knew that I missed out on something special. 

Ten years later, Todd and Elaine decided to organize a TMB hike again and this time I replied within fifteen minutes saying that I was in.

A few months later, fourteen of us met in an airbnb in Les Houches, France. The group ranged from several of my closest friends to people I had never met. Orientation began. Todd and Elaine issued us custom bandanas that they had designed with our route on it. They gave us a link to install the custom app they had made, which tracked all of our locations in real-time, allowed us to nominate each other for merit badge pins (which were handed out at the end of the day to be affixed to our custom ribbons), and most importantly had the waypoints, maps, and highlights along each day's trek.

There are two main ways to do the TMB. The first is to hire a tour company to guide you. They make all of the arrangements, carry your heavier luggage, and provide guides that you follow along the trail. It's expensive, and having a guide just kills my interest. I don't necessarily want bad things to happen, but I want there to be at least some chance that I get lost, trampled by cows, or struck by lightning. Then when none of those things happens, you feel like you've accomplished something.

The other way to do it is to backpack, like I did on the Appalachian Trail. You have to rent the camping spots or hostel beds in advance, but you carry everything you need across the whole distance.

We did something different. Todd and Elaine planned the entire route, made reservations for places for us to stay each night, and rented a huge van. We left our laptops, extra clothes, and anything else we didn't need for the day in the van, and then one person would move it to the next place each day. Sometimes the car routes were hours long, so a person would just skip hiking for that day, but other times the first person to make it to the end of the hike would uber back, grab the car, and bring it to that night's accommodation.

Day 1

Spirits were high the first day. Everyone was excited to be there and eager to get onto the mountain. There was a natural separation in our group: some people were early risers and very fast, so they left early and just started running. Some people woke up, had some coffee, and began their walk, and some of us believe having tea is more important than anything else in the day, and were the last to leave.

People say that if you don't like hiking the TMB, you don't like hiking at all, and one of the reasons why was immediately obvious as soon as we started hiking. The alps are just about as beautiful as it gets. Within minutes we were looking past fields of grass and flowers at snow-capped mountains, waterfalls, and glaciers. By noon we discovered another one of the reasons people love the TMB: refuges. Unlike the Appalachian Trail, where you go days without seeing a single building, the TMB has chalets and huts every few hours. Some offer accommodation, and most have some sort of food.

The food can range from a "sandwich" that is essentially a piece of bread with a piece of hard cheese on it, all the way to full meals. My favorite food of the entire trip was found in our very first refuge. Imagine hiking for four hours, after not having hiked in months, looking at the menu, and seeing a wild blueberry ice cream sundae. It was a scoop of homemade vanilla ice cream, a scoop of homemade blueberry sorbet, chantilly cream, and tons of local berries. I wish I could show you a picture, but I was so hungry that I ate it before I even thought about documenting it.

The first day was about nine miles of hiking with some really brutal rocky downhills at the end. All of our knees hurt, but mine seemed to hurt the most. My left knee was so swollen and painful that once I stopped hiking I couldn't bend it anymore. I was gutted. The two times I attempted to do long treks both ended earlier than I had hoped. The first time was when I foolishly tried to do the Salcantay Trek without preparing, acclimatizing, or bringing food. The second was when I left the Appalachian Trail after four days because my shoes caused severe ankle pain. I really didn't want to give up again, but it felt like I wouldn't be able to hike the next day.

Day 2

Luckily, I woke up with my knee feeling slightly better. It still hurt a lot, but I could bend it much more. I figured that I would just try to hike, and if it was so painful that I couldn't go on, I'd head back and uber to the next spot. That day I hiked with my good friend Ben and two people I hadn't met, Fatemeh and Desiree. Even though Ben and I are good friends, we don't get to catch up as much as we used to, so between catching up with him and getting to know the two new people, the time flew by and distracted me from my knee. We saw ibexes on the mountaintops, a helicopter bringing supplies to rebuild a refuge, and meadows full of grazing sheep.

I ended the day feeling optimistic. As long as I wasn't getting worse every day, I could probably keep going.

Day 3

On the third day, I hiked with Todd (of Life Nomadic fame), Desiree, Todd and Elaine, and my friend Toby who had come from London to join the hike. The third day was slated to be the most brutal day of all, 13.3 miles, and it was supposed to rain. We were also at a higher altitude, which meant it would be cold. Some people were worried about lightning that was maybe going to come in the afternoon, so we left around 6am.

Elaine had a spare knee brace, and wearing it made my knee feel even better than the previous day. We began our first steep uphill feeling pretty good, despite the rain and humidity. By the time we got to the top of the first mountain ridge, we were all soaking wet and freezing. I had my rain shell on, but I was also wearing shorts and shoes that weren't waterproof. I could feel the water squeezing in and out of my socks with every step. I also felt like my shirt was soaking wet, but knew that it was probably just an illusion from the cold.

As we scrambled down the other side of the pass, we saw a building in the distance. It turned out to be a tiny museum in the middle of nowhere, far from any roads. We went in to get out of the wind. We had just crossed into Italy (maybe my first international border crossing by foot?) and Italy's reputation for being the friendliest of the three countries was immediately confirmed. The museum guide ignored the fact that we were dripping all over the museum and showed us our route on the giant 3D model of the entire mountain range.

I unzipped my rain shell to find that somehow my shirt was in fact soaking wet. I still don't really understand how this happened, because it's the same rain shell I've used for the past few years and it has never failed me. Maybe it wasn't zipped up enough and water got in through the neck? Maybe I just sweat more than I ever have in my life? Maybe it's just worn out? Either way, I was freezing and it didn't seem like I was going to get warm again. I still had eight miles to go.

Shortly after the museum, we found a refuge that was known for its hot chocolate. It had a room to leave your backpack, a room with a big heater where you could hang up your gear to dry, and then a restaurant with huge windows overlooking the valley. It was amazing to warm up, take off our wet shoes, and eat cake and drink hot chocolate while looking out at the rainy valley ahead.

At the bottom of the valley, halfway through the planned hike, there was a bail-out point. The trail crossed a road which had a bus that led directly to our accommodations for that night. Sentiment shifted as we rested. What's the point of doing another mountain in the rain? It's miserable. One by one we decided that we'd take the bus into the city instead of hiking the second mountain.

I was the first one to put my cold wet gear back on. I stood outside waiting for the others, but the wind whipping against my cold skin was too brutal. I decided I'd go ahead and meet them at the bus stop. Slightly anxious about my completely wet clothes, I decided that I should try to jog a little bit to generate some heat. The slope was gentle and the knee brace was working, so it wasn't that hard. At the bottom of the hill was a rare flat section, and I just started running. If I could generate some body heat, maybe my clothes would dry out a bit.

As I got near the bus stop I saw the trail continuing up the mountain. As soon as I saw it, I thought, "I didn't come all this way to ride on a bus". It might be painful and miserable, but surely I could make it over the next mountain. If I could just take a few steps up the mountain, I bet I wouldn't turn around. So before I could think too much about it, I started marching solo up the mountain.

Almost immediately, the weather got better. Halfway up the sun came out and I took off all my jackets. Before long my shirt actually dried out. I passed through herds of cows with bells hung around their necks, a herd of sheep with their shepherd watching from a hill above, and around a mountain lake. It was some of the best scenery yet, and I felt great for making the tough decision to hike it. The descent down alternated between extremely slippery mud and hot exposed sunny areas, but it wasn't too bad. In the end only four of us did the full hike on the second day.

That night we took the van to a spa just outside of town and spent hours in the hot pools, looking up at the alps around us.

Day 4

I was wiped out the next day. I hiked with Toby, who is one of the fastest in the group, and struggled to keep up with him. It was a brutal ascent, with the only real highlight being a patch of wild blueberries we found. It was exposed in the sun, but windy enough that you still got cold, and the endless switchbacks made the mountain feel only slightly less vertical. I felt like I was pulling myself up with my poles.

Eventually Toby went ahead of me and waited at the top of the mountain. I alternated between thinking things like, "Why am I even doing this? I don't have to be miserable and going up a stupid muddy mountain" and "Why do you care if you're going uphill or downhill? You're going to do it anyway. Just focus on the process". I finally made it to the top and ate half of Toby's peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

Toby is faster on the ascents, but I'm faster on the descents, so I hiked most of the way down by myself. It gave me time to reflect on the difficult ascent, but it was also just particularly beautiful, which put me in a better mood. I decided that if I sign up for something then it's totally pointless to have a bad mood about it, and that I should just appreciate it for what it is. Easier to do on the descents, though.

The rest of the group wasn't too far ahead, and we met up with them at a refuge where they were eating cheese and "milkshakes", which are literally just shaken milk. After the amazing sundae on the first day, that was a letdown. We walked through a herd of cows, I got stung by stinging nettles, and we hiked together to our refuge for the night.

This refuge was a particularly interesting one. It was directly on the trail, and some friends who had stayed there told us that the included meal was "soul crushing", without elaborating any further. We were now in Switzerland, which is known to be the least friendly and most strict section of the trail.

The refuge had a system. No bags were allowed in the bedroom, so they provided huge plastic bags for transporting necessities into the room. Showers could only be taken before dinner, not after and not in the morning. Soap and towels were not provided, but if they liked you and you asked, they might give you one. You could tell that they didn't like that we were on our laptops, and very begrudgingly gave us the wifi password. 

Dinner started out surprisingly strong. They gave us nettle soup that was excellent, and it felt like vengeance for the stinging nettle that had stung me earlier that day. Then there was a salad course, and we had spotted them bringing in the lettuce from their garden. How could this meal be considered soul crushing?

The main course was what we called "meat flutes". Every person got three rolled slices of ham smothered in some sort of orange sauce, two unseasoned boiled potatoes, and some unseasoned green beans. And the dessert crushed our souls: two rings of canned pineapple each.

Day 5

The next morning I commented that someone in our room had been snoring. It turns out they weren't the only ones, and sentiment quickly turned against me. Apparently the people next to me had been poking and pushing me all night to get me to stop snoring, and it hadn't really worked. I told my wife about this and she immediately became worried, because she says I only snore when I'm sick. From that point on I mostly roomed with the other known snorers and slept in disgrace.

That day I turned a corner. For the first time in my life, I enjoyed the hiking. I didn't mind if it was an ascent or a descent. My cardio had caught up and I'd reached some sort of state of equanimity. I was lucky to be able to do this once-in-a-lifetime hike with friends, new and old, and should just enjoy every moment of it. Ironically, without any real trials or tribulations, I remembered a lot less of the hike. We went through a small town, found a random cave in the mountains, and then ended the day at Champex-Lac, a beautiful mountain lake town. As we walked to our airbnb we passed a bunch of old men with remote control sailboats, looking like they were living the dream.

Our accommodation that night was in stark contrast to the night before. We had three condos in a row, all with patios and lawns facing the lake. I couldn't wait to have tea in such a beautiful setting the next morning, and the snorers and I who shared a condo didn't worry at all about what others thought about our sleep habits.

Days 6+

The last three days felt very much the same. Easy hiking through beautiful mountains. Familiar scenery, but with some different elements each day. The last day had ladders bolted into the rocks, which was fun. One mountain hut sold me an omelette and piece of cake for about €40, but the omelette had at least 6 eggs in it. We found more wild berries. We ate escargot at the final mountaintop, looking at the final town in the distance. Our route intentionally skipped some road sections and some descents (by taking a gondola instead), but I hiked the entire thing and was proud of myself for actually completing one of these hikes. On the last day I didn't wear the knee brace.

Todd and Elaine had one last surprise in store for us. Other than the place in Champex-Lac, we mostly stayed at spartan hotels, hostels, and refuges, but the last two nights of recovery were different. They had booked an enormous chalet that had floor to ceiling windows facing Mont Blanc, an indoor pool and movie theater, sauna, billiards room, and a lot more. I don't really remember what we did there, other than hang out, recover, and drink tea. It was great.

I went into the hike not really sure if I liked hiking, and then by the end we were all talking about where we should hike next and about how easy it would be to keep putting in 10+ mile days forever. I can't wait for my next hike. I'll definitely do another section of the AT next year.

If you're up for an adventure. the TMB really is about as good as it gets. It's all the beauty and challenge of a normal hike, but with decent places to sleep and good food along the way, so you don't have to carry that much, even if you're hiking the whole thing.

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