Chamonix, France
The birthplace of alpine mountaineering. Steep, serious skiing off the Aiguille du Midi and hut-to-hut trekking in summer.
Best time to visit
Weather by month
| Month | High | Low | Rain | Season |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan | 2° | -6° | 167 mm | prime |
| Feb | 4° | -5° | 140 mm | prime |
| Mar | 7° | -2° | 145 mm | prime |
| Apr | 11° | 2° | 126 mm | |
| May | 15° | 6° | 183 mm | |
| Jun | 20° | 10° | 156 mm | |
| Jul | 22° | 12° | 159 mm | prime |
| Aug | 22° | 12° | 145 mm | prime |
| Sep | 18° | 9° | 119 mm | prime |
| Oct | 15° | 5° | 122 mm | |
| Nov | 7° | -2° | 152 mm | |
| Dec | 3° | -5° | 180 mm |
30-year averages (1995–2024) from ERA5 reanalysis via Open-Meteo. Rain is the monthly total.
Cost
Serves travellers at Backpacker→Premium level. Typically around $180 a day on the ground.
Ranges are typical costs, not quotes. Check the real price before you book.
What's on
Musilac Mont-Blanc March
Rock festival at the foot of the massif
UTMB August
The 171 km ultra around Mont Blanc
Worth knowing
Cards for everything in the valley. Mountain huts on both the French and Italian sides are often cash only, and there is no machine at 2,500 metres.
money · editorial
The Aiguille du Midi takes you from the valley to 3,842 metres in twenty minutes, and people faint at the top. Sit still for a while before walking about. Everything off the marked pistes here, the Vallee Blanche included, is glacier terrain and needs a guide and the kit that goes with one.
know before · editorial
Late April into June, and most of November, are the between-seasons: lifts shut, huts closed, half the town on holiday elsewhere. There is nothing to do and no way up the mountain.
when not to go · editorial
Chamonix town is the centre of gravity, with the Aiguille du Midi lift and everything open late. Les Praz is quiet, under Flegere, ten minutes out. Argentiere is the skiers town, at the foot of the Grands Montets. Les Houches is lower, sunnier and easier with children. Servoz and Vallorcine are for people who want the valley without the town.
where to stay · editorial
A bus and the Mont-Blanc Express train run the length of the valley and link every village and lift station; accommodation normally issues guests a card for them. A car is only worth having if you plan to ski other resorts, and in winter it needs winter tyres by law.
getting around · editorial
Geneva is the airport, and it is about an hour and a half by road up the valley. Shared shuttles run the route constantly. The train is possible but involves changes through St-Gervais and takes most of a day.
getting there · editorial
Quests
Icon
Aiguille du Midi
3,842 metres, reached by cable car in twenty minutes. Move slowly once you are up.
Mer de Glace
The largest glacier in France, and the signs showing where it stood in each decade.
Place Balmat
The statue points at the summit. Balmat climbed it first, in 1786.
Le Brévent
The other side of the valley: the whole of Mont Blanc head on, with nothing in the way.
Cascade du Dard
Twenty minutes on foot from the centre and you are alone underneath it.
Les Houches
The village at the end of the valley, where the Tour du Mont Blanc starts and finishes.
See
Go up the Aiguille du Midi, at 3,842 m
Eat
Eat a fondue savoyarde after skiing
Fondue savoyarde
Bread on the fork, a figure of eight. Whoever drops it buys the round.
Tartiflette
Potato, reblochon, bacon. Invented to sell cheese, and it worked.
Génépi after dinner
A liqueur from a plant that grows only above two thousand metres.
Moment
Ski the Vallée Blanche with a guide
The first cable car of the day
Before eight, with the valley still in shadow and the summit already lit.
See a line of climbers on the snow
Black dots in single file on a white wall. Always smaller than you expected.
Trail
Lac Blanc
Nine hundred metres of climb to a lake that hands the whole range back upside down.