Header image: The party on Col de Balme with Aiguille Verte and les Drus on the left and Mont Blanc in the distance
Page image: evening sun on our first night’s camp at Lacs Noirs, with Mont Blanc across the valley
Leaders Allan Witton, Adrian Dobson, Mark Hesketh, Penny and Ekki Staufenberg. Coach Driver: Dennis Hughes. The illustrated log below contains a full party list
The Route The Tour du Mont Blanc is a route MGS trekkers have done frequently in the past (1935, 1950, 1954, 1959, and 1966), but although Trek was in the area of Mont Blanc in 1974 and 1983 it is now 22 years since Arthur Kahn led the last Trek round the full circuit. The basic TMB is rather easier than the standard of recent Treks and it doesn’t include any summits, so we planned to use all the higher official variants (and some of our own), and climb as many peaks as possible.
We did it in the unconventional direction of clockwise so we could make use of the Brévent and Val Veni cable cars, and so the first night’s camp could be at Lacs Noirs. The route divided into five sections between supply points at Montroc, Praz de Fort, Planpincieux and les Contamines, so at no stage were we carrying more than 3 day’s food, and consisted of 4 stages between valley camps at Sembrancher, Planpincieux, les Contamines and les Houches.
The first part of the route was planned to be the same as that taken on the 1983 Mont Blanc-Grand Combin Trek, through the Aiguilles Rouges and round the northern end of the Mont Blanc massif, culminating in a camp on snow by the Orny hut and an ascent of Pointe d’Orny. Sadly, storms prevented us camping at the hut and so the only easy 3000 m peak on the route had to be omitted. From Praz de Fort it was mostly the standard TMB with short diversions to some easy summits and a whole day excursion from Planpincieux. The summits climbed were: Tête de Ferret (2714), Tête entre deux Sauts (2729), Tête de la Tronche (2584), Tête Nord des Fours (2756), Mont Vorassay (2287).
Route Outline: Day 1. Chamonix > le Brévent > Lacs Noirs 2. Lacs des Chéserys 3. Lac de Charamillon > Refuge Albert Premier 4. Val d’Arpette 5. Praz de Fort 6. Col Ferret > Tête de Ferret 7. Planpinsieux 8. Tête entre deux Sauts 9. Refuge Elisabetta 10. Refuge du Bonhomme > Tête Nord des Fours 11. les Contamines 12. Combe des Juments > Mont Vorassay 13. les Houches.
Below is a slide show of a selection of images from the Tour du Mont Blanc. All the images are taken from the illustrated log below, where their locations are given. Click on the file name to view it, and it can then be downloaded.
wittonMGStreks 