TMB 6: The hikers’ dilema

Our final day on the Tour de Mount Blanc dawned clear and bright. We had a great dinner last night with people who have become familiar after days of walking together, a nice room, then an excellent breakfast. All in all, a better start to the day than our previous night in the refuge.

Today’s walk started out gently walking through a series of cute alpine villages and then a pine and beech forest interspaced with meadows. The two pictures above show the view to where would walk for the first part of the day, with a meadow in the far distance, then standing on the meadow and looking back from it to where the first picture was taken.

The morning continued with more uphill and Mountain views until right near the end. Then we were faced with a choice – continue on a more gentle uphill for an hour and 10 minutes, or hit a really steep trail for 40 minutes. By this time our legs were hurting anyway so we decided a short sharp pain was better than a drawn out one and took the extremely steep shorter route. It hurt.

At the top we arrived at Bellevue which is very aptly named. After a picnic lunch we took a final look at among Blanc and, mercifully, caught the cable car back down to the valley floor.

So we have completed the circle around Mont Blanc. It was stunningly beautiful and extremely tough walking – there were blisters and sore legs on all sides. Sort of strangely given the name of the walk, Mont Blanc is not the highlight. Sure it’s tall and white, but it is surrounded by more spectacular jagged peaks. The meadows of wildflowers, the deep valleys, and the snow-lined rocks made for picture-perfect views, and certainly made the trek worthwhile.