Fastpacking the Tour du Mont Blanc
16 Jun 2024 - Andrew Landau
Wow, we did it. Along with my partner Jasmine, we fastpackedRead: run-walk with small backpacks full of food, water, and dry clothes, sleeping in mountain huts called refugios each night. the Tour du Mont Blanc, a roughly 100 mile trail that circles the Mont Blanc massif in France, Italy, and Switzerland. On our feet, from start to finish. Okay, sometimes our butts. I can’t believe it’s over, but at the same time I fully knew we could do it. Still, it’s wild to know that my first time doing such a gargantuan running adventure is behind me.
Why would we do something like this?
Many people (including me, for what it’s worth) like weekends filled with food, relaxation, a respite from work, and socializing with friends. This was a little different. This involved many massive climbs with over a kilometer of ascent, technical descents on steep trails filled with roots and rocks, tricky snow passes at over 2400m above sea level, and a progressive increase of the deepest fatigue in my legs I’ve ever experienced. Sounds hard, right? And yet, I loved every secondEven the low points… more on that soon. of it.
There are several reasons why I wanted to fastpack TMB, as there must be for something as challenging as this.
The challenge
I love pushing myself and seeing what I can do. It’s something I take with me in all aspects of my life, and running is one of the best places to carry this kind of attitude because it’s extremely measurable. I had never run over 100 miles in 4 days. Now I have.
Experiencing the grit that is summonable in the human body is a fantastic feeling, but not one that is easy to come by. In my typical week, I’ll run 45-50 miles, with some workouts and a long run. It can be tiring, but not like this. Only when it’s 2, 3, and 4 days deep into 100 miles, and there’s still a vertical kilometer or two to climb with 10s of miles left in the day, is it possible to discover what the body is capable of. Finding a way to run strong on those later days was exhilarating and has left me feeling even more powerful in my body than I ever have before.
The experience
I love going on running adventures like this. So far, Jasmine and I have done a 2-day trip on the south coast of England and a 3-day trip on the coast of France near Nice and Menton. Every single time, we learn more about how to plan, manage, and endure the challenge of running long distances on back-to-back days far from home. Of course, stepping up the distance and number of days makes it harder, and for that I feel all the more ready for more adventures like this in the future.
The history
The Tour du Mont Blanc is a mecca for hikers and trail runners. That’s partly because of the beauty of the landscape and geography, the wow-factor of running around such a huge mountain, and of course the fun of experiencing three countries and all the food along the way. But for us, it was especially meaningful because the biggest ultra marathon in the world each year is held here each year, called the Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc - or UTMB.
Every year, the greatest trail runners in the world, along with many other less famous but equally impressive runners, congregate in Chamonix, France, to run all 100 miles of the TMB in a single effort. Courtney Dauwalter, Kilian Jornet, Francois D’Haene, Jim Walmsley, Zach Miller, Mathieu Blanchard, Katie Schide, I could go on, .. have all made their pilmigrages to this place, sometimes year after year, in the hope of winning and claiming their place in trail running fame. I love watching the competition, of course, but more than that it was amazing to run in this place knowing that I was running in the footsteps of all these inspirational runners who had the same goal as me: make it back to Chamonix in one piece (hopefully as fast as possible).
We do it for the adventure.
The reasons I listed above are important, but they’re kind of the supporting reasons. It’s important to have supporting reasons. But running in a place I’ve seen on TV isn’t really enough of a drive for digging in on day 4. Getting experience for future experiences like this is circular reasoning and doesn’t help if there isn’t an underlying motivation. And as every Type A person knows, pushing yourseful for the sake of it only works until it doesn’t. There’s always a crash or burn out, and let me tell you, without a deeper reason for doing this I can easily imagine quitting on this one.
That brings me to the heart of it all: the yearning for adventure. The main reason I run is for the adventure. I run so I can get out there and see the world, pushing myself beyond boundariesBoundaries both physical and psychological! and experiencing as much of this beautiful earth as I can. Training and getting faster is fun and satisfying, of course, but the main reason underlying it all is so I am prepared for experiences like fastpacking the TMB. And the TMB did not disappoint.
The mountain
I live in London, England. It’s a pretty place, with a bucolic countryside, an impressive coastlineSeven sisters, the cliffs of Dover, Pembrokeshire Coastal Path…, and its share of parks with stunning mountainsSo far I’ve been to the Lake District, Snowdonia, The Peak District, and Brecon Beacon. But it’s hard to beat the beauty of the Alps, and the Mont Blanc massif is the queen of the alps at that. You can clearly make out the entire massif from terrain maps of the regionsee first image above, from a plane
, and of course throughout the whole 100 mile extent of the tour. As we ran around the massif, we got to see the entire range from every angle, standing high above us even as we reached the high points of the tour. It’s unreal to see towering “Aiguilleswhat they call many peaks here, translates to “needle” in French”, massive glaciers, and an otherwise unworldly landscape I rarely get to experience.
There’s also something supremely satisfying about completely encircling such a huge geological feature. The massif is big and tall enough to see from many places - I’ve seen it from the train around Lake Geneva, while skiing in Verbier, on a high-alpine hike far away in Italy, and of course from a plane. So to stand in Chamonix witnessing it close up, then run around the whole mountain, and return to the same place 4 days later knowing that we carried ourselves on our own 2 feet around the entire thing brings an indescribable feeling of pride and gratitude.
I’m so grateful that such beautiful places exist and that we get to experience them intimately on adventures like this.
The trail
Looking out at the mountain is amazing. But just being on such a wild and varied trail was amazing too. We started out near Chamonix, where there were lots of roads and towns. It was a little off-putting actually, we were expecting single tracks and mountain vistas, but we got a little switchback neighborhood and a ski resort. Fortunately, that didn’t last for long.
By the time we passed Col de Voza(see the first photo), we found our first single track as we descended into the Contamines valley. Wow, it was pretty! This place had riverside trails, a nice groomed trail in a big nature reserve, and a valley straight out of the Sound of Music
.
The next major landmark was the Col du Bonhomme, and wow, things changed quick as we approached it. This was the first high pass of the Tour, at 2408m elevation. Since our Tour was in June, the snow started around 2000m. We brought a pair of trekking poles for safety, and it’s a good thing we did, because the snow was packed, a little slippery, and had serious exposure. We made it, of course, and arrived at our first home for the tour, the Refuge de la Croix du Bonhomme. This was the first of four high-altitude passes, including the Col de la Seigneat the border of France and Italy, Grand Col Ferretat the border of Italy and Switzerland, and Col de Balmeat the border of Switzerland and France. They were all steep, arduous, and beautiful.
Snow is water, and if the snow is at the top of the mountain, you know what’s at the bottom. Water crossings. Oh yeah, we ran straight through glacial melt rivers whether we wanted to or not(we wanted to). Sometimes the crossing was over a quickly melting ice bridge
, other times it was a straight up river. We loved it.
It was wild actually, one may expect that running through a glacial melt river with shoes and socks on would be uncomfortable, but light-weight trail shoes made it so easy and pleasant. It was a nice bath for the feet, and it didn’t take a minute before our feet felt completely normal again.
One last thing about the trail. We weren’t alone! We saw a bunch of marmots
and a family of Ibex
!
The food
And of course, the food. I can’t talk about a trip around France, Italy, and Switzerland without mentioning what we ate. Much of the eating was done during running, as it must when the running took around 8-11 hours each day. Many runners opt for high-performance gels and liquid carbs(us too on typical workouts and long runs from home), but for this trip we went for normal food, which basically consisted of baguettes
, cheese, tomatoes, and a variety of sports bars. But then we also got to eat at three mountain refugios
and a fancier-than-expected Swiss hotel.
Rifugio food is kind of amazing. It’s not too complicated, but so so good, partly due to the deep fatigue and hunger from the day, and also because of the excellent high-quality products in Europe. Rifuio du Bertone in Italy featured a polenta and a beef stew with panna cotta dessert. But the Swiss hotel tops it all. Beef and mushroom with linguine, cream, and unreal veggies. Did not know that that’s what I needed on the last night, but I did. And the dessert was out of this world
.
Finally, once making it back to Chamonix, we ended with a pizza place we tried out the night before the tour and was recommended by Billy Yang in his awesome documentary of the TMB. Two pizzas, fries, a beer, and the last tiramisu in the house.
This was a trip of a lifetime, and I hope to do it again.
