Classic hut-to-hut routes · France, Italy, Switzerland

Tour du Mont Blanc

The loop around the highest massif in the Alps: three countries, a dozen cols, and a bed with a view every night.

Distance
~170 km
Days
7–11
Total ascent
~10,000 m
High point
Fenêtre d'Arpette, 2,665 m
Season
mid-June to mid-September

The Tour du Mont Blanc circles the massif rather than climbing it, which is why it is the most walked long route in Europe. Every day ends in a valley or at a refuge, every pass opens onto a different face of the mountain, and you cross from France into Italy and Switzerland on foot.

It is not a technical route, but it is a long one. The cols come daily, the descents are steep on the knees, and in July and August the huts on the popular stages are full weeks ahead. Booking before you commit to dates is the whole game.

Who it suits
Level: Confident walkersFirst-timers with a solid week of fitness, families with teenagers, and anyone who wants the classic before the variations.
The nights
Refuges and rifugi most nights, with village hotels in Les Contamines, Courmayeur and Champex if you want a bed with a door.

Stage points and the shelters near them

Published path grades around the stage points run T1 to T5, from 10 of 10 stages. That describes the terrain there, not the exact line of the route.

59 shelters within 4 km of the stage points, from the shelter table. Distances are from the stage point, not walking distances.

  1. 01Les Houches

  2. 02Les Contamines-Montjoie

  3. 03Les Chapieux

  4. 04Rifugio Elisabetta

  5. 05Courmayeur

  6. 06Rifugio Bonatti

  7. 07La Fouly

  8. 08Champex-Lac

  9. 09Trient

  10. 10Tré-le-Champ

How booking works

Alpine Club huts on this route take reservations through hut-reservation.org, the shared system of the German, Austrian and Swiss clubs. We link straight to it and earn nothing from a hut booking.

Members of any Alpine Club pay a reduced rate at all club huts, whichever club they joined, and membership usually includes mountain rescue cover. On a week of hut nights it pays for itself. Join the SAC

Plan Tour du Mont Blanc around my datesOpens the planner with this route's area and length filled in.

Common questions

Every answer below is counted from the 59 shelters our table holds along this route. Where a shelter does not state something, it is counted as not stated rather than assumed.

How long is Tour du Mont Blanc, and how many days does it take?
About 170 km, usually walked in 7–11 days. Total ascent is around 10,000 m. The highest point on the route is Fenêtre d'Arpette, at 2,665 m.
When can you walk it?
The season is mid-June to mid-September. Of the 59 shelters along the way, 25 publish when a warden is present, and the most common season among them is June to September, stated by 16 of them.
Where do you sleep?
In 59 shelters within 4 km of the stage points, of which 59 are run by an Alpine Club. 1 of them can be booked online through the clubs' own system; the rest take a phone call, and every number we hold is on the shelter's own page.
Do you need to book ahead?
0 of the 59 shelters state that a reservation is required and 0 that it is recommended. The other 59 do not say either way, which is not the same as saying no.
What if you arrive out of season?
5 of the 59 shelters state that a winter room is left open. That is a room, not a service: no warden, no meals, and you carry what you need.
What is the highest place you sleep?
The highest shelter we hold on this route is Bivouac Mario Jachia, at 3,360 m.

Other classic routes

Distance, days, ascent, high point and season are approximate and taken from Wikipedia, Tour du Mont Blanc. Shelters from refuges.info (©Les contributeurs de Refuges.info, CC BY-SA 2.0 FR) and OpenStreetMap (ODbL).