Tour du Mont Blanc Hike Planning Experience

Happy Halloween!

I hope this message finds you in some lovely Autumn hiking weather - or at least some nice leaf carpeted trails. Here in Germany it’s been so fun to seek out the “haunted trails” and make some dumb videos.

Today’s hiking roundup:

• Tour du Mont Blanc Hike (TMB) Planning Experience

• TMB Planners - Alternate Way to Book

• Resources to Plan

• TMB Itinerary for 5 day Adventure

TMB Planning - My experience 2 weeks ago - A tangled chaotic web

Seriously, it’s a fun exercise in logistics to plan your own TMB hike. However, if you’ve not done it already and are going in more than a group of 1…It’s probably too late. Boo.

Here’s how it went…I woke up at 12:05 am on Oct 15th and got onto the Autotour TMB site and started piecing together a do-able route.

I used komoot to figure the distances.

It’s really good for finding European huts and will calculate distances and elevation between.

This year, based on no particular notice a bunch of huts opened bookings on Oct 15th. Last year, different date.

Why? No idea, but the word on the facebook groups was hot. (and TBH I had a colonoscopy scheduled the next morning, so there’s no way I was sleeping that night IYKYN).

After securing an email reply from Rif Bonatti (must stay hut), I booked a hotel in Courmayeur the night before.

Bonatti - one of the best mountain huts doesn’t take deposits.

I then went onto Rif Combal (also a must stay hut due to the lake behind it and glaciers and food and comfort) which is one day prior to Courmayeur.

They emailed me back to say they are letting the autotour site now handle the bookings (previously they handled it and took credit card deposit).

So when Combal opened at midnight on Oct 15th - GAME ON!

I couldn’t get a block of 6 (my family plus some friends) at Combal for early August. So I moved it a week later (not ideal due to Aug 15th Italian national holiday) and started all over. I booked Combal, paid 20% non-refundable deposit.

Back to Bonatti via email, based around when I could get 6 into Combal. It took them 3 days to get back to me….

I was sweating. Hard.

There’t not much by Bonatti…and all the valley hotels nearby fully booked. Rif Elena emailed that they aren’t open until later, January maybe to take ressies.

But I didn’t wait to finish the rest.

Oooh. So I went next to Les Houches at the start of trail - and found a nice, cheap refuge that’s only 2km from the village and run by Romanians. Check. Booked.

I paid in full on the autotour site. (yikes, i love a deposit).

The other choice in town that is on the autotour site has reviews that they are veggie. Gross. No thanks! Not for 95 pp, per night.

My favorite Airbnb replied to me that she has to work in August and can only accept week long ressies…But if I came in July we could stay. Nah, we’ll be in Alaska so it’s not possible.

Then - skipping back to find a hotel in Courmayuer.

I had one previously that was good found on booking dot com. But they didn’t have the new mid-August date so I cancelled for free. I booked another crappier hotel, pretty far away from the village but there’s a bus service, so whatever it’s fine.

Then zigzagging back to the notoriously difficult section between Les Houches and Val Veny.

I want to take the variant over Col des Fours as it’s splendid…but I don’t think we can get all the way to refuge Mottetts. And I don’t get the appeal anyways…so I frantically kept trying to book Refuge Bonhomme. Their website, not on the autotour site, had no mention of 2025.

Called three times. Emailed. Nada.

It’s Alpine club - so I thought briefly about joining. Then I went full dork and posted on the facebook group the next day. To which someone called me out for being a dork as they posted that they will start accepting ressies in January.

I embarassed myself in public.

Seriously? After I embarass myself, they literally posted the date of reservations opening the night after I emailed/called and I didn’t check the site before posting. Dumb Morgan. ALWAYS check again before you post and spam up the group feed.

People shitpost Bonhomme all the time, so I’m not so worried and will wait till January to book it.

One hut unbooked.

After that, the only thing left was to ensure a day or two extra to make sure that we can go paragliding. I found a refuge style place in Chamonix!

What! So cheap and cute and a 25 min walk to the center so I booked a spot there prior to hike so that we have two days just in case of weather to paraglide in Chamonix.

Then I got email reply from Bonatti confirming our date, even on a public holiday!

I don’t ever want to stay inside Chamonix unless it’s hyper lux as I need fresh air to sleep and Chamonix is LOUD! I love my sleep, with an open window.

Chamonix Side Adventures - Paragliding

We’re not going to hike between Chamonix and Les Houches - I’d rather allot that time to paragliding and in case my niece coming from USA has some jetlag to acclimate. Or if a flight get cancelled, one extra day.

Read my paragliding review.

Alternate Way to Book

TMB Planners will do all of this for you and more. I’m not sure if they pre-book or hold a block of beds at the refuges, but they are like jenga-masters utilizing taxis, buses, hotels, variants, etc to make a route work.

Either way, being flexible on the dates really helps. Fortunately, there’s plenty to do in Chamonix and beyond if you need to move it a day or two.

I send all my friends to Alpenventures because it’s a female-owned company that has excellent customer service, great prices and fully specialized in mountain treks. They hike the actual hikes and know what we want and need.

Helpful Resources

👉TMB Luggage Transfer

👉Mountain Hut Etiquette Guide

👉Best Time to Hike TMB

Tour du Mont Blanc Hike Itinerary Example

Thanks for reading! It’s been a few weeks of happy mushroom hunting here in Germany - it’s incredible. Not that I’m gonna eat them…Okay, until next time!

x Morgan