Tour du Mont Blanc (TMB): Chamonix to Col de la Seigne
So we are here in Shaman with the Sosur and Balmat statue there pointing up to Mong and behind it is Lab Breon. We are going up there this morning on the cable car. Good morning from Shamoni. Yeah we are on our first day on our tour the ML here. We’re leaving Shamoni behind and heading to this vernacular up here and up in the the brev our first stop kind of walk up and then the zouch where we going to stay tonight. Super excited to start this amazing journey. So keep fingers crossed for good weather and keep you posted. Wow. We are going up. Amazing. What’s happening here, Mark? Well, we are getting the cable car up from Shaman to Clon Pra and then we will get off there and walk up to Libra. Oh wow, look at the view. We can see Shamali just down there the bottom. Wow. What a magnificent view. You see and Yeah. So this one is a Yeah. And there over there it’s mlong. Well, this is just a treat. So we are here at Plon Pra above Shamani. You can see Mlong and the Agui Deidi there and Hadita here. And we are going up there to Breon. It’s about an hour just under two hours I think to get up there. from here. So we have made it up to the colder brev and you can see Agri Deidi and Mlong there behind Adita. It’s taken us about an hour from Plum Pra and it’s a 45minute walk up to Librev. from here. There’s a nice plateaued peak up there. What a great view. What a great day. We are so psyched about this tour. So stay tuned. There’ll be more. Ciao. Mercerata [Music] here. There was a ladder there behind. [Music] [Music] So this is the official start of the to demon in Leouch. Uh except we started yesterday from Shamani. There’s an archway there marking the start point. Um and we’re going to walk up that hill behind into the mist. It was supposed to be nice. Forecast was for sunshine, but it’s a bit cloudy. [Music] So we are here at the cold deosza. It’s 1665 m. It took us only about an hour and a half up from Leouch somewhere down there. Uh so we have made good time and we are heading um we’re heading down that way. I think this is the iguid somewhere up here. Um we’re heading down there. Heat. Heat. [Music] Hello. Our second day of trekking. We coming from Leouch. Going to our next destination with Mark coming nice and rapid creek. So Mark, how are you feeling today? All good. Very good. Nice little bit of woodland walk. What’s our destination? I forgot. Leontamin Contamin. Yes, you’re right. Okay. Okay. Upwards and onwards. [Music] So, this is our third day setting out from Le Contamin. We stayed in a nice hotel up there, shallow style. There is a nice view up the valley. It’s starting to clear. It’s slightly cloudy, but clearing. Um and we’re walking up to three high passes called de la Bonom called de laqua de la bonom and called the four today. So it’s a long day with three high passes. We got to 2665 which is the highest point of the to demon day three. Here we go. There’s Mark coming. So we are leaving Contamin Contamin going to uh to the we are leaving for the um glass little the glass here. Okay. [Music] Oh, what a nice bit of trail running park. Amazing. [Music] Oh, what a nice another day. Day three. Here we come. Mark also coming here. And it’s really amazing feeling, huh? when you are in the hills. Good weather, good spreads. So, onwards and upwards. Yeah. [Music] So we are here at Kong our first high pass of the trip. So we are there is a group there. It’s trail looks a bit icy up there on the way up to cold de la Cuad de Bonom. Hopefully it’ll be okay. We’re heading up there now. Our second big pass. We have come We have come from just around the corner there. De Bonom is just around the corner. Our first climb of the day. [Music] Yay. Wow. Wow. Wow, we have reached second all day. [Music] So, we’re here at cold deour 622 sorry 2665 m which is the highest pass among all the variants of the to de mlong. Uh our route goes down there to Levil de Glacier down in that valley. I can see it from here about hour and a half down and then tomorrow we go over that pass down to Kayer on the Italian side. And there you can see just behind the igu there that snow dome that’s Mlong. Uh, so we’ve got a view from it from up at the pass. Um, and we’ve in good time. It’s only about 2:00 now. Uh, so we’re going to go a little 40-minute detour up to this little peak here called Lelay Nord Tet Deftor or something. Defor something like that. Uh, which is about 275. supposed to be a very good viewpoint. So, um we’ll go up there and have a look [Music] at Dur. We came up on the up that peak. Here’s Mark coming. So we came from over there the pass of um Bonham here is like our last it’s actually the highest point on Mo Blanc trail. Uh here you can see M Blanc no peek over there behind and I think Mat Matorn on the right. Is it Matahorn on the right? Oh, amazing. Wow. So happy to be came here, huh? Yeah. So, we are here at the summit of Techno D4. There is Mlong. This is 2756 m of fine viewpoint where we came from the valley down there. We come all the way up. You can see the trail all the way up to the culdeon which is somewhere down there. Um then the cold bonom and go down there down to Valacia. Yeah. All good. [Music] So, we are here at V de Glacier. It’s about 9:00. Um we came down yesterday we came down from there from the uh cold and tomorrow we’re going up that way. That’s the egg de glacier. Um and the pass called deen is there to the right. [Music] And now we can see the pass called Dufour where we came down yesterday. And just to the right of that you can see is the is the peak we went up to Nord Duour. And we continue up this way. [Music] Hello. Here we arrived at the border crossing. This is the border between France and Italy. They called the lassen. You can see this nice down here filming onwards and upwards. [Music]
Our Tour du Mont Blanc started with a cable car journey high above the Chamonix Valley to the ski resort of Planpraz. It was mid-September, but already there was snow on the slopes above as we climbed up to the 2,525m peak of Le Brévent via Col du Brévent. Here we joined crowds of tourists who had continued in the cable car up from Chamonix.
The snow cover was temporary. It petered out as we descended through forest to the village of Les Houches, the traditional starting point of the TMB. We only encountered it again briefly two days later.
We had a gentle day ambling along woodland trails and through sleepy villages in the Val Montjoie, before a big day crossing three high passes: the Col du Bonhomme (2,329m), the Col de la Croix du Bonhomme (2,479m) and the Col des Fours (2,665m). Here we reached the high point of the trek when we climbed up an easy peak Tête Nord des Fours (2,756m), a classic Mont Blanc viewpoint.
On the fourth day of the trek we walked up the Vallée des Glaciers to Col de la Seigne, which marks the border between France and Italy.
For a trip report see: https://www.markhorrell.com/blog/2024/trekking-the-tour-du-mont-blanc-part-1-france-to-italy/
For related photographs see: https://www.flickr.com/photos/markhorrell/albums/72177720320677999/
Music: Magic voyage by Alena Smirnova is licensed under a Attribution 4.0 International License: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/alena-smirnova/my-film-music/magic-voyagemp3/