Tour du Mont Blanc
FR · CH · ITLive- 166
- km
- 11
- stages
- +10 027
- m ascent
- −10 030
- m descent
Stages, times and the profile follow the direction you pick.
Difficulty
Moderate
avg +912 m/day · 15.1 km/day · 21 km without an overnight · hardest day +1,264 m
Derived from distance and ascent, not terrain grade — not a SAC or T-scale rating.
The Tour du Mont Blanc circles the highest massif in the Alps, crossing three countries and a string of high passes — the highest is the Grand Col Ferret at 2,537 m. The classic direction is anticlockwise from Les Houches: over the Col du Bonhomme into the Vallée des Glaciers, across the Col de la Seigne into Italy, along the balcony paths above Courmayeur that face the Grandes Jorasses, over the Grand Col Ferret into the Swiss Val Ferret, then through Champex and Trient and back over the Col de Balme into the Chamonix valley. Villages are rarely more than a day apart, so nights can be in mountain huts, gîtes or valley hotels.
Your own day-by-day draft. The stages below are the trail's published ones; your plan is set by the days you have.
Places along the way
Overnight network: dense
21km
Longest stretch with no mapped overnight
km 96–117
32 overnight places · 4 potable water
25 huts · 4 lean-tos · 2 shelters · +1 other
+12 more within 2 km off route
Statistics
- 2 538
- m highest
- 974
- m lowest
- +10 027
- m ascent
- −10 030
- m descent
- 15.1
- km/day
- 11
- stages
Hardest stage Les Contamines (Chalet du CAF) → Refuge du Col de la Croix du Bonhomme +1 264 m
Stages
Classic 11-stage anticlockwise division from Les Houches, compiled 2026-10-24 (data/trails/tour-du-mont-blanc/stages.json, reviewed: false) · updated 2026-10-24
Good to know
- Route
- Les Houches → Les Houches
- Season
- Mid-June to mid-September
- Daylight
- 15 h 43 mid-June · 12 h 28 mid-September
- Waymarking
- TMB signposts throughout; local waymarks differ by country
- Huts and gîtes fill up in July and August — book ahead for the whole route.
- Most huts open from mid-June to mid-September; outside that window many are closed or offer only a winter room.
- Two currencies: euros in France and Italy, Swiss francs in Switzerland. Switzerland is also outside the EU roaming zone — check your mobile plan.
- Snow can lie on the high passes (Col de la Seigne, Grand Col Ferret, Col du Bonhomme) into early July.
- Courmayeur, Champex and the Chamonix valley have shops and public transport — the usual places to start, stop or skip a stage.
- Access: Les Houches by train (Saint-Gervais – Vallorcine line) or by bus from Chamonix.
Route & elevation: OSM relation 9678362 "Tour du Mont Blanc - Itinéraire principal" (© OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL), fetched 2026-10-24 · elevation Copernicus DEM GLO-30, bilinear from the 2×2 cell neighbourhood · 17004 points · imported 2026-10-24
Elevation figures · full-res GPX, 10 m threshold
© OpenStreetMap contributors · Terrain: © Copernicus DEM GLO-30
Plan your nights on Tour du Mont Blanc.
The planner lays out your days by where the roofs on the trail are, and shows where you need another option.