Tour of Mont Blanc Day 1: Les Houches - Bellevue
Les Houches to Les Contamines-Montjoie via the Col du Tricot is a long day especially in bad weather, so we opted to split it in two and treat this short first section as a warm up day.
We based ourselves in Chamonix - you can catch a train to the start at Les Houches and there are more hotels as well as a wealth of supermarkets and shops for last minute purchases. Some hotel owners will store a bag for you if you've booked a night or two at the end of the walk.
If you come by car, parking is available at an underground long stay car park. There are a number of campsites within walking distance of Chamonix.
If you do split the first day you could spend the night at the Col de Voza rather than head down on the cable car back to Chamonix like we did. Some might consider it to be cheating, but technically you do the same mileage and add a little mechanical transport to get you to and from your hotel room. There is a hotel near the Tramway du Mont Blanc station at Col de Voza but it makes quite a short day - even with a leisurely start we were finished just after lunch.
Diary - Monday July 12
We woke up to find the cloud level on the road and heavy rain - not a great start. The forecast suggested improvements as the day went on so we decided to walk up to Bellevue, returning by cable car and spending an extra night in Chamonix.
The stage starts with a straightforward road section from Les Houches railway station to the cable car. It begins to steepen beyond the cable car station, but at this point it's still on asphalt roads. It levels out as it passes through a small village and then leads on to a teleski station (Maison Neuve), where the road peters out. Here the path becomes really steep without any zigzags to take the sting out of the gradient. It is a slog up an uninspiring section of the route, but you have to get away from the town somehow.
We passed a few small ski cafés but they were only open in the winter months. At this point the rain came back with venom, so we took shelter under the roof awning of the Chalet du Terrain and ate our picnic lunch while we watched the mist roll in across the valley. It wasn't a place to linger - we were soon engulfed by cloud and the temperature dropped, making us colder by the minute.
After lunch the weather started to clear and when we could finally see our noses in front of our faces we realised that we were actually quite close to the Col de Voza. A quick walk got us there in increasingly better weather. The hotel was almost deserted - not surprising given the rain.
An easy short climb alongside the Tramway du Mont Blanc took us to Bellevue cable car station. The forecast for the next day was not great either, low cloud but at least there would be no heavy rain, so we decided go for it and start the TMB.
We returned to Chamonix, bought a 2 week car parking ticket, set the alarm for 6:30AM and went out for a fondue. The late evening weather forecast at the Bureau des Guides warned of early fog but later the cloud level would lift to 2500m - higher than the Col du Tricot, so we decided to stick to our plan and take the high variant.
