Tour de Mont blanc day 10
For the first time in 10 days, we weren’t greeted with the usual TMB breakfast and it was sort of strange. I didn’t think we would miss the monotony of the same breakfast every day but it turns out we actually just want Coffee and cereal anyway, we also missed having fellow backpackers around to chat about the trail and where we were planning to stay the night. We left the Alpina hotel and started on our final leg of tour de mont blanc.
Chamonix to Le Brevent cable car TMB day 10
The cable car to Le Brevent doesn’t open until 8:45 am so we went shopping for fruit and snacks to eat along the trail. We got the cable car to the top of Le Brevent which was already packed with people taking advantage of the easy access views(who could blame them). 
Le Brevent to Bellachat TMB day 10
We walked out of the balcony and found the trail pretty quickly, it was signposted pretty immediately. Le Brevent is at a height of 2526m and we plan to descend to Les Houches at 1007m.
We nearly instantaneously start our descent into Les Houches. Most of the time we are looking at our footing as the trail has a loose stone covering so it is very easy to lose your footing. The trail starts the descent on the opposite side of Les Houches but we quickly cut back onto the right side of the mountain, then you realise that the walk down to the valley is the steepest to date.
Sections of the trail cut through sheer rock and metal handrails are in place to protect from falling, I presume this is needed in bad weather but the views of Les Houches is pretty spectacular from here. You become fixated on the town as we can see it most of the way down the mountain.
The trail is extremely steep and a descent of this scale plays havoc with your knees and quads. Then you see a section that required you to scramble beside cliff edges with 1000m drops with shaky legs and only a small chain to keep you from death. Thankfully there weren’t many chains on the descent to Les Houches.
Bellachat to Le Brevent TMB Day 10
We only pass one refuge on the way to Le Houches, Bellachat is 1 hour down from Le Brevent, we didn’t stop as we felt we good and we were already packing supplies from the morning resupply. We reached the treeline of the forest in about 1 hour 20 minutes after Le Brevent. The trees provided us with much-needed shelter from the blistering sun, it was only 11:20 am and it was already 32 degrees. It took us another hour and 10 minutes to continue our descent to Statue de Christ at 1180m.
Statue de Christ on tour de mont blanc
We had a quick bite to eat here as it was a perfect spot for a picnic. The statue du Christ Roi is made from concrete and is 25 meters high and its construction started in 1933 and it is also the second-highest statue in France. It’s pretty cool to walk past a historical statue like this, as we didn’t see this in our guidebook.
From here it took us 1 hour and 15 minutes to descend into Les Houches, this is should be a lot longer than it should take as we were directed in the wrong direction by 2 women cutting grass. We were making good time to catch the train to Paris until this happened. We walked 20 minutes in the wrong direction and realised we should have been in Les Houches by that time so we turned around and walked back from where we came and found a sign 10 seconds away from where we took the wrong turn.
Les Houches train station Tour de Mont Blanc
We reached the train station at 1:42, 45 minutes to spare, to catch the train to Paris, Phew. Now for our next adventure to Paris for 2 days to explore Disney Land, then down to the south of France to start our hike on the Camino de Santiago (Buen Camino)
Our Impression of hiking Tour de Mont Blanc Day 10
Our final day walking the Tour de Mont Blanc was definitely the easiest day so far as we did a lot of the harder walking the previous day. Our advice would be to allow additional time for the TMB, don’t rush it. We found we were stressing about getting the train and not actually loving the hike. Take the additional days off work and stay in the mountain refuge that your passing at 1 pm, you won’t regret it. Someone once told me that people on their deathbed never regret not working more, I honestly believe that.
Walking advice for Day 10 of tour du mont blanc
- Enjoy every last second of the TMB and its views
- Take loads of pictures because someday you will forget that hard section that you felt like quitting or the time that you were afraid to climb the ladders
- The descent to the valley can be hard on the legs, rest them on the way down
- Bring lots of water today
TMB Day 10 – Walking time- Tour de Mont Blanc
- You would want to allow 5 hours including breaks.
- We started walking out of Le Brevent at 9:00 am and we arrived in Les Houches at 1:42 pm.