Following an intership at the Megève mountain guide office, I decided to use my leave days to do another trek in autonomy, in the same philosophy than the one I did in Queyras in June, carrying all my food and equipment, and sleeping outdoor: 4 days of pleasure around the Mont-Blanc.

ANECDOTES :

Bivouac stories are the theme of this trek.

The first day, after a challenging and beautiful hike (with the sunrise on the Mont-Blanc range observed from the top of Mont-Joly as a reward), I decided to enjoy the thrill of sleeping outside in the ruins near the Mottets refuge. The owner of the refuge told me that a fox was prowling and had stolen stuff from people who camped there recently. In addition to this, weather forecast announced thunder for the morning…whatever, I could not resist the joy of falling asleep while looking at mountains ans stars.

view from my sleeping bag :

As I had been warned, I received a visit from the fox at 2 AM who came sniffing around my sleeping bag and tents next to me. Leaping to my feet I try to scare him away, he turns around and looks at me with a stunned look saying something like “hey dude, are you all-right?”, and then ignored me as he continued checking out the camp site. Looks like I had nothing to fear, and nothing else to do but go back to sleep. So I did. An hour later, ending a dream, I open my eyes to observe the stars and what do I see? clouds coming fast. I leaps to my feat again, ate my breakfast, packed my backpack and at 3h30, I took refuge in the porch of the Mottets refuge as the rain started to fall. I then waited for thunder to take a short break to run up the Seigne pass and go down the Italian side. I kept playing this hide and seek game with thunder the entire day to cross all the pass.

On the third day, I bivouacked in the woods near the Arpette country inn. From the track, I saw a children’s treehouse in the wood. It was a dilapidated structure with an elevated floor and 2 walls. A perfect place to camp! I arranged a roof using my shelter sheet. Royal! It’s the most comfortable camp I ever made, I slept like a baby. Thanks you hut-building kids!

ROUTE :

Day 1:
Route : Megève – Mont Joly – col du Joly – col de la Fenêtre – refuge le Balme – col du bonhomme – col des fours – Mottets
Distance : 38km, altitude : +2790m/-2050m

Day 2:
Route : Mottets – col de la seigne – lac de Combal – col Chécroui – Courmayeur – refuge Bertone – refuge Bonatti
Distance : 37km, altitude : + 2240m/-2060m

Day 3:
Route : refuge Bonatti – refuge Elena – petit col Feret – la Fouly – Arpette
Distance : 37km, altitude : +1290m/-1720m

Day 4:
Route : Arpette – fenêtre d’Arpette – la Prisé de Bisse – les grands dessus – col de Balme
Distance : 14km, altitude : +1640m/-1080m