Les Houches to Les Contamines

We woke up to the patter of rain, but by the time we had eaten breakfast and packed our bags the rain had cleared. The way marked TMB path no longer starts on the Chemin du Bonnet opposite the Hotel Slalem as described in the Cicerone book, but a couple of hundred meters further up. This caused a slight, brief map altercation resulting in me being banned from using the m.a.p. word or looking at m.a.p.s for the duration of the trip. A bit harsh I thought because I don't always get us lost!

Some wooden steps soon had us high above the pretty alpine chalets in the village and our hearts pounding. And if that wasn't enough, the view down the valley of the Arve was breathtaking with the sun breaking through the low cloud in wide beams. So to the music of cowbells and cockerels we turned our back on the Chamonix valley and headed on up.




This path was extremely well sign posted, steep in parts, but well maintained all the way up to the Col de Voza at 1653m. We passed a couple of small bar restaurants which were closed but the hotel at the tram station was open and we had hot chocolate and ice cream looking out at the Bionnassay glacier. Decadent!

The main climb of the day done, we headed down towards the small hamlet of Bionnassay where we saw goats and giggling children riding donkeys. The place looked ancient with the roofs of the chalets covered in a fish scale of thick stone slabs typical of the area. We carried on down past a tiny church towards the Bionnassay torrent which we could hear thundering in the steep valley below us. As we approached we could smell the water in the air and the temperature dropped several degrees.








A steep climb after the bridge led to a forest track and then down to a couple of pretty villages surrounded by alpine meadows where we stopped to refill our water bottles in the stone troughs and splash our faces and arms with the icy mountain water. Then all the way down into Les Contamines where we stopped at a bar for more ice creams and a cold beer that tasted like nectar!

What a perfect day.



- Posted by Julie using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Les Contamines Montjoie

Ready or not

The Tour du Mont Blanc, around the highest mountain in Europe, is arguably one of the best walks in the world.  Over the next 10-12 days we will be walking the 170km route anti-clockwise starting in Les Houches using the Tour of Mont Blanc Cicerone guide by Kev Reynolds.   We plan to roughly follow the daily itinerary outlined in the book but depending on variables like the weather and the state of our feet we may vary the pace and the route.

To give us maximum flexibility we have only booked accommodation for the first three nights - any more would give us too much of a headache cancelling if we were to change our plans but booking less in the August peak holiday period seemed too risky.  As it was the CAF refuge in Les Contamines-Montjoie was full so we have booked into Hotel Le Christiania  for the first night.

We are flying into Geneva and catching the alpybus transfer to Chamonix, then spending a couple of days there to get over jet lag before setting off on the walk.  

The  Chamonix weather forecast for the last week has been very hot - over 30C  and in the low 20s at 2000m with thunderstorms in the afternoons so I'm expecting to see a wide variety weather conditions.  That's OK, although we have packed light (my pack weighs just 7kg and that includes 1.5litres of water) we have most scenarios covered.

Well I'm ready as I'll ever be....are we there yet?