Les Houches

Where the Tour begins and ends, at 1007 m under the Bionnassay glacier.

The place

Where the Tour begins and ends, at 1007 m under the Bionnassay glacier at the western end of the Chamonix valley. Shops, a bakery, buses and a station on the Mont-Blanc Express, twenty minutes from Chamonix and an hour from Geneva by shuttle.

As a start it is unglamorous and extremely practical: everything you forgot can be bought here, and the trail leaves from the middle of the village. As a finish it is quietly satisfying — you come down off the Brévent, walk the last few hundred metres past houses rather than mountains, and the ring around Mont Blanc is closed. One hundred and sixty-six kilometres, ten thousand four hundred metres of climbing, three countries, eleven cols, and back where you started.

Getting there

Booking

This stop is not on the Tour du Mont-Blanc booking portal — it takes its own reservations, so there is no live availability for it in the planner. Contact it directly, early: the well-known ones fill months ahead.

Other places to stay nearby

• Chalet Les Méandres (ex Tupilak) Chalet · 1120 m
  2.1 km back down the Tour, at 1120 m. Bookable on the Tour du Mont-Blanc portal, so the planner shows its availability night by night.

For when this stop is full. These book themselves and are not on the Tour du Mont-Blanc portal — contact each directly and confirm before you rely on it.

Stages passing this stop

• Stage 11: Refuge de la Flégère → Les Houches