Kit taken to wear
- Running shoes (Saucony Pro-Grid Guide 4 & Asics gel Trabuco 13)
- Running t-shirt plus long-sleeved shirt and waterproof jacket
- Shorts and running tights (no waterproof trousers as we’re used to running in all weather in our gear, although a colder wetter week might have caught us out)
- Socks (see things to consider)
- Hat (both peaked sun hat and warm running beanie) and gloves
- Collapsible walking poles (essential)
- Head-torch
- Rucsac (25 litres)
- Sunglasses (useful but not vital)
Kit to carry
- Snacks! Between two of us we started with 800g of Cadbury’s Fruit & Nut and a further bar of normal chocolate, 12 Tracker bars, 2 orange power shots, 2 chocolate protein bars (which we kept aside for emergency use), a packet of dried mango, 8 Options chocolate drinks, 8 sachets of (just-add-water) minestrone soup.
- Kev Reynolds guide Tour of Mont Blanc and a map of the area
- Reading glasses, in my case
- Compass (not needed due to excellent weather conditions)
- Water, 2 litres in either a bladder or bottles (see things to consider)
- Stove and gaz, plus mug and teaspoon or spork each
- First aid kit and some other lightweight emergency gear like a sharp knife, emergency blanket & waterproof poncho (none needed, fortunately)
- Bivouac bag (see things to consider)
- Silk sleeping sheet for use in huts (I really wish I had bought and taken a lightweight pillow from Cotswolds too)
- Minimal wash kit including hair/body/clothing washing gel, toothbrush/paste, deodorant and a small microfiber towel
- Sun cream
- Additional warm waterproof hat
- Spare running t-shirt plus t-shirt for huts / travel and additional lightweight warm fleece
- Additional track pants for huts / travel
- Spare socks & underwear
- Crocs for huts / travel (something less bulky would have been way better in retrospect, or none at all as many of the huts provide shoes)
- Money (everywhere along the TMB route seems to accept Euros and we spent circa €700 between us, although we weren’t especially frugal and this included our final night in Chamonix in a large room with a view of Mont Blanc)
- Mobile phone (doubling as camera), Garmin and European chargers
- Spare batteries for the headtorch
- Dry-bag to go inside rucsac plus lots of plastic bags to make finding different sets of kit easy and re-sealable bags for phone, books, money etc
Things to consider
- This 5-day Packham-Foster variant of the TMB is pretty much like working out on a stepping-cross trainer for eleven hours a day, for five days flat. If you’re looking to take in the scenery in other than a cursory way, pause at the numerous hostelries along the route and have a generally relaxed walk, our suggestion would be allocate more time to it. Eleven days is probably quite relaxed, but there are lots of great looking variants and side walks if you want to pad it out along the way
- The itinerary that Kev Reynolds outlines appears to be very popular, which means that the stops he recommends tend to be busier and in some cases more commercialised. There is lots of other accommodation listed through the book and elsewhere and our suggestion is to at least consider using this. We particularly liked the characterful Rif Maison Vieille, the more authentic Ref Le Peuty and the friendly Ref La Flégère (although this is also an itinerary hut). We are both somewhat comfortable with ambiguity, but our suggestion would be to book ahead each morning at the latest
- People normally start from Les Houches on the weekend, so if you want to avoid the rush, bear this in mind, especially in the more popular huts
- Though comparatively heavy, the guidebook is excellent and well worth taking, but a map is also vital as the signage is variable in places and destination names do tend to vary. There’s a new edition of the guidebook due out in January 2012.
- Telescopic walking poles with wrist straps are a must in our view (we were thankful for them numerous times a day throughout the trip), but especially if you’re trying to get around sub 5-days
- Rucsac weight is important if trying to move quickly. We had circa 10kg packs including 2 litres (2kg) of water and would have preferred them lighter to make running possible. A belt pocket, accessible whilst walking, is ridiculously useful for a camera and snacks (I didn’t have one and it was a constant pain for both of us!). Webbing on the outside of the pack is also pretty useful (again, my rucsac didn’t have it so I was constantly unzipping pockets etc to get at things)
- Hydration is vital and we tried both a 2 litre bladder and two 1 litre bottles. The former made hydration on the move possible, while the latter made it easier to gauge the amount left, fill the pan on the stove and refill at clean water sources without unpacking the whole bag. On balance we would probably recommend a combination of part-filled bladder and separate bottle, allowing the additional flexibility to carry slightly more where needed.
- We wore fairly standard running shoes with a good tread pattern and these worked brilliantly, though it was a dry week and relatively warm. We are used to using these in all weathers throughout the year in the UK, albeit for shorter periods
- Our lighter weight socks worked better than our more padded ones as they caused feet to sweat less (less odorous) and dried quickly when we were able to wash them.
- I seldom catch the sun when I’m running but sun-cream was essential at this higher altitude, especially on face, back of neck and arms (including the backs as far up as t-shirt sleeves)
- There were very few places to recharge phone / camera / Garmin batteries and the solar panel for the latter also failed. We used our smart-phones at cameras, switching them on only to take pictures. This was a bit laborious but we got by on one charge midweek at Rif Elena. We also switched off the data collection to conserve power (and insulate us from work) for the duration of the trip
- We had a small fast-boil gaz stove, but arrived at Les Houches too late to buy gaz. We finally purchased some in Courmayer and thus used it only once below Grand Col Ferret, but would have used it more if it had worked on the first night or if the weather had been less clement
- Easyjet let us down on the way to Geneva, but redeemed themselves by moving us to an earlier flight on the way back when we arrived earlier than expected.
- We had a diligent young (almost silky-smooth) ChamExpress driver on the way back to Geneva, but the driver on the outbound journey, whilst chatty and helpful, was simply terrible at driving. This was further highlighted by a resident of Les Houches whom he cut across on the way into the village… she subsequently buttonholed him at the first drop for cutting her up and with good reason, suggesting that the driving standard of the company was known to be, er, suboptimal. We mention this in the hope that ChamExpress might see that there is considerable customer, vehicular and stakeholder (staff, neighbours and other road users) value in spending time training staff to drive smoothly and safely. This said, they were punctual in all regards and despite the receptionist at Geneva being a little grumpy, found space on the next bus when we arrived late.
- Our aim was to stick as faithfully as possible to the Main TMB route, which we did with a couple of minor inadvertent exceptions. The UTMB route is actually quite different in a number of respects, but every bit as long and arduous. Given less time pressure, say 7 instead of 5 days, we would have walked some of the high-level variants and other excursion walks. Overall it was a life-affirming trip!