TMB – Day 2
This is the longest climb of the circuit, gaining over 4200 feet of elevation before dropping back down to Les Chapieux. This was the day I was most concerned about, and had used it as a baseline for our practice hikes. We had hiked up over 4000 feet in training so I knew we could make it to the top, but I also knew we had to wake up tomorrow and hike again. And this was something we hadn’t done on our practice hikes.
The night before we had discussed this with a few hikers we recognized from the hotel in Les Houches. Everyone was concerned about today’s hike, and we all agreed that the best approach was a slow and steady climb. Just keep a slow constant pace, do not push ourselves, and eventually we would reach the top. We determined that another early start would allow us the flexibility to go slowly and rest often. Sunrise was around 6:30am, we were out of the hotel by 6:00am. As we grabbed our shoes from the shoe room and prepared our packs in front of the hotel, we shared a few words of encouragement with the other early hikers.
From our hotel it was a short walk back to the path along the Bon Nant River to pick up the trail where we had left it yesterday. My quad still had a sharp pain from the day before. It was manageable when going uphill, but hurt a lot when going downhill. I tried to put it out of my mind, thinking I would worry about that when we get to the top.
The morning air was moist and cool as we walked along the Montjoie Valley following the beautiful milky light gray-blue hues of the Bon Nant river.
Near the end of the valley, we passed Notre-Dame de la Gorge, a church built at the end of the 17th century at a site that had already been used for centuries by pilgrims praying for safe passage across the alps.
The climb begins shortly after passing the church along a road much older than the church. You begin by climbing along the remnants of a roman road built in the 1st or 2nd century, which was laid over the top of a much older Celtic trading route through the Alps. After a short time the trail crosses a roman bridge, repaired and fortified over the years, but whose foundations are nearly 2000 years old.
Shortly after the bridge we passed the restaurant La Sollie, still closed for the morning, and two refuges: Refuge de Nant Borrant and eventually Refuge de La Balme. Between the two refuges the climbing eases, providing a slow, easy walk up a quiet, picturesque valley nestled between by mountain. The ridge lines on both sides defining the boundary between the Savoie and the Haute-Savoie regions of France.
The sun had not caught up with us yet. But it was working its way down the nearby mountain peaks providing us an estimate of how much shade we had left to enjoy.
After passing Refuge De La Balme the climb resumes in earnest. The elevation is here approximately 5500 feet, leaving another 2500 feet to climb in a bit over 3 miles. As you climb, the valley behind you stays in view you stretching further and further away. As we climbed, a blanket of clouds rolled in leaving us partial shade for the remainder of the hike.
Eventually Col du Bonhomme comes into view. A steep winding trail is also visible along the right side of the col. Patches of snow remained here in August, and many people were using it to cool off before continuing their climb.
It is a hard climb to Col du Bonhomme, but it’s not the end of the climb. Col de la Croix du Bonhomme is the peak, which is another half mile away and 300 more feet up.
The trail from here is a rocky climb along a steep ledge, eventually becoming just a rock scramble. TMB logos painted on rocks are the only indicators that you are still on the right path. As you approach Col de la Croix du Bonhomme a very clearly marked trail reappears and stays for the remainder of the hike, as if it had been there the whole time.
Refuge de la Croix du Bonhomme is visible from the col, a short downhill trail takes you there. We were looking forward to finally reach our lunch stop and taking a rest before beginning the long descent into Les Chapieux. But upon arriving at the refuge, we changed our minds. The inside had been completely overrun by flies. Flies were everywhere, landing on us while we stood in line to order food, and speeding past our faces while we tried to read the menu. It was packed full of people inside and out eating something that looked less than appetizing while fighting off a horde of hungry flies. A few empty tables had been completely overrun by masses of flies crawling around and surrounding spots of food chunks that had been dropped by previous occupants. After a short time in line, looking around in shock, we walked back out and headed to the lines in front of the outhouses. The outhouses were worse, and that is about all I’ll say about that.
We went without lunch this day. We instead ate only the snacks we had packed, including meat sticks and gummies. But at least for now we had lost our appetites. Over the rest of the trip we stopped at several refuges and none were like this. Most were very comfortable spots to rest with beautiful views and delicious food. This one was just uniquely bad.
From this point the hike is all downhill. It is a steep descent which drops 3000 feet in about 3.5 miles. The downhill caused my leg pain to reemerge, so I wrap my quad as tightly as possible in an ace bandage for support. It helped a bit with the pain but our descent was slow as I still needed frequent stops to massage my quad and rewrap the bandage.
Over the next couple of hours we watched the Les Chapieux Valley slowly grow larger until the trail ended abruptly at a road immediately in front of our hotel, Auberge De La Nova.
The town of Les Chapieux is tiny, consisting of a few buildings, possibly two or three small inns, and a large campground. There is a shuttle running through Les Chapieux Valley to La ville des Glaciers and occasionally to Refuge de Mottets further up. When staying in Les Chapieux, this shuttle will eliminate 3 miles and 1000 feet of climbing from tomorrow’s hike. But it also has limited seating capacity and fills up way in advance. If you plan to take this shuttle, it is recommended to buy tickets immediately upon arriving in Les Chapieux. When exiting the trail, turn right on the road and you will see a visitor center on the left. The ticket machine is outdoors in front of the visitor center and does take credit cards.
In spite of running straight to the machine, all tickets were sold out until 9:15am. I had been hoping to leave around 8am, or even earlier, to get ahead of the heat. But as I was very tired, I decided waiting until 9:15am tomorrow was worth it in order to hike 3 fewer uphill miles.
After buying bus tickets we returned to the hotel to check in. Auberge De La Nova does not allow you to take shoes or luggage into your room. We arrived to find a pile of luggage out front which had been dropped off by the luggage transfer services and a larger pile of people rummaging through their luggage attempting to gather essentials into baskets provided to each person by the hotel. We were warned that all luggage is locked up and inaccessible in the evening, so you must get everything you need now. I lost my phone charging cable somewhere in this mess of digging through luggage and transferring baskets up and down the stairs.
Fortunately, this would be the only hotel with the “no luggage” rule. The 2nd floor rooms were shared dorm style rooms, and private rooms were on the third floor. In spite of the apparent ruggedness, we were happy to learn we had our own private bathroom and shower.
Dinner was an interesting affair as well. All tables seated 8 and all food was shared with the table. At our table, we managed to find common ground in our disgust with Refuge de la Croix du Bonhomme. A couple of people had chosen to eat there out of desparation and joked about the possibiliy of developing food poisoning.
After desert people filed out to their rooms for the night. The small town was dark and silent and we slept well. Tomorrow we would have another col to climb after a late start, but it would not be nearly as demanding as today’s hike.
Start: Tour Du Mont Blanc
Previous: Day 1: Les Houches to Les Contamines
Next: Day 3: Les Chapieux to Courmayeur (TBD)
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