Tour du Mont Blanc Day 6: Ferret to Monte Bianco

jana meerman tmb tour du mont blanc italy monte bianco (20)

This is the blog post about our sixth day hiking the Tour du Mont Blanc. Check out my summary post with all my tips for planning your own TMB!

The Tour du Mont Blanc is a 165km hiking loop around Mont Blanc, with nearly 9km of elevation gain into the sky, through 3 countries: France, Switzerland and Italy. You can go as fast or as slow as you want, staying in your choice of the many refuges (mountain huts) along the way at night. I know people who've done the whole loop in 3 days, and others who take it slow and go for 12 days. Connor, a friend and fellow hiker from Vancouver, and I planned a 9-day trek on the TMB.

Day 6: Ferret to Monte Bianco

Total distance: 34.12km

Total elevation gain: 1825m

Total elevation loss: 1867m

Refuge we stayed at: Rifugio Monte Bianco

Countries: Switzerland and Italy

Morgan and Claire hiked the 2km from their refuge where we had dropped them off the afternoon before to meet us outside our refuge in Ferret at 6:30am. Our longest day awaited us, with more than 34km of steep ascents and descents to go. We began our climb almost immediately, trekking through overgrowth, wet from the previous night’s rain, that scratched up our legs and left us worse for wear.

A fine morning rain began, covering us with mist from all directions, a blessing as we made our way up the steep switchbacks towards the Italian border. We summited the border ridge, and immediately lost all the elevation we had just gained with a steep downward stretch into Italy.

Passing crystal clear blue rivers, with views of glaciers in all directions, the friendly "bonjour" which we’d been so accustomed to saying thousands of times a day turned into "ciao" or - when we were feeling extra exuberant - "buongiorno!"

We climbed along the ridges of Italy, before stopping at a little hut for lunch, where our meal consisted of all the snacks we had stashed in our packs - candy, biscuits, power bars and slightly stale bread lathered with nutella. We looked down over Courmayeur, our 900m descent still ahead of us, our knees beginning to ache, the tunnel that goes directly through Mont Blanc to Chamonix teasing us with every step.

Somewhere near the bottom, we passed the 100km mark, a significant and humbling milestone. The final 400m climb to our hut for the night along a series of switchbacks up a road was brutal but, it being an Italian hut, a gigantic plate of pasta was waiting for us.

Jana Meerman

Hi! I’m Jana, a Dutch-German-British-Canadian with a dream of seeing every country in the world. I am a storyteller, photographer and adventurer passionate about documenting and sharing my travels.

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