Tour du Mont Blanc

We went in 2018 with guides—-a guided hiking tour with REI Adventures. It was excellent—-great guides, wonderful food and accommodations, and professional guiding expertise that was essential on two tough days—-one in a downpour that obscured views for way-finding across rocky terrain (no actual trail), and one when the trail ahead was closed by a mudslide (from the previous day’s rain) and we needed an alternate route to Val Ferret.** I don’t know what independent hikers did with that problem. Also, the camaraderie of the other guests was very enjoyable. So we felt it was well worth it, and made for the best possible experience for us.

REI Adventures no longer runs international trips, but our guide also works for Mountain Travel Sobek, and they run the same trip. She is a member of the Guides de Chamonix, and they also offer guided
Tour du Mont Blanc trekking tours (for considerably less than the companies I mentioned):

https://www.chamonix-guides.com/fr/activites/categorie/randonnee/tour-du-mont-blanc

Another company to consider, this one British, is HF Holidays. We have used them for short walking holidays in the UK, and would consider them if we do the Tour du Mont Blanc again (which we mights);

https://www.hfholidays.co.uk/holidays-and-tours/mont-blanc

There are a number of companies that offer “self-guided” trips if you want to do it on your own, without a group and guide. They book the accommodations for you, and luggage transport where needed, and provide maps and route instructions. A friend of ours did this with Distant Journeys, who customized the trip a bit for their needs.

https://www.distantjourneys.com/trip/self-guided-tour-du-mont-blanc-hike

The friend said it was fine, but they did get off-route a couple of times as the maps and trails can be confusing (and she is a very experienced hiker).

Whichever you choose, there are some things to consider. One is the type of accommodations: do you want private rooms (with or without ensuite bath) or alpine huts with shared sleeping rooms? At our age (70’s), we choose the former—-after a bad night in the mens’dorm at Phantom Ranch at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, my husband is done sharing sleeping space with snoring strangers!

Another consideration is the direction of travel—-clockwise or anti-clockwise. I read that the latter is preferred by many for the better views of Mont Blanc and the Aiguilles du Midi as one hikes into Chamonix from Argentière, so we chose that. It was indeed a glorious day having that view in front of us as we walked. My husband and several other men in the group took advantage of the opportunity to swim in Lac Blanc as the perfect ending to a great trek. Neither they nor our guides would have been comfortable with that on the first day, when we barely knew one another.

** Here are some photos and description of what we missed that day, from another hiking company’s website:

https://www.alpenwild.com/Alpshiking/tour-du-mont-blanc-highlight-val-ferret/

The mudslide in that area during our Tour is representative of a problem that is becoming more common as the warming climate melts permafrost that holds the mountainsides together in places. Some climbing routes up Mont Blanc itself have been closed due to rockfall hazard from this icemelt, and later the same summer there were warnings of a threatened collapse of a glacier in ear Courmayeur (I will try to find the news article about this).

This ongoing problem is a good reason to choose a guided trek, in my opinion.