Mont Blanc Ultra Trail

Courmayeur, Italy to Champex, Switzerland to Chamonix, France

John Holdroyd and myself took part in and completed this race which was held on Friday/Saturday 24^th/25^th August 2007.

The total distance was 86km.  We started at 12:30 pm on the Friday, in Italy, and finished at 11:16am on the Saturday back in France.  It was a race but, after the first couple of small mountains (only up to 2000 metres!) we reverted to walking after managing to run on some downhill sections.  

The Col de Grand Feret went up to 2600 metres and was quite an effort, very tiring but the views over to the Mont Blanc massif with glaciers and a wonderful U-shaped valley were exhilarating and well worth it.  By now we crossed the col and descended into Switzerland with evening coming on.  Things got easier and we made a good walking pace for the next few hours into darkness.  Here we climbed again up to a lake which was at 1900 metres. A straight forward but 800 metres climb which took us to the 45km checkpoint where we had a good meal, changed our socks, put warmer gear on and John  even had a lager!  By now we had taken over 10 hours but were in good spirits.  

 The weather had been really warm and clear and the night followed suit.  It got a bit chillier but we were warm with our walking and climbing.  After restarting, we had good walking downhill and then gradually uphill. It was then, in the early hours of the morning that we hit the Bovine.  Only 2100 metres high but we were climbing from 1100 metres.  As it got higher the walking was more and more treacherous, steep with stones and boulders to scramble over.  Luckily we had walking sticks and good lamps on our heads.  It was very tiring and we had been out for over 14 hours. 

  The downhill right down into a deep valley was also very tricky but we eventually reached the checkpoint for a welcome breather and refreshments before having to go back up again to 2000 metres up another steep but not so rocky mountain.  We both decided to just go for it as it was the last big climb.  We joined a crocodile of walkers and all helped each other up. It was dark when we started but by the time we were heading down into France it became daylight.  This, together with the fact there were no more steep climbs, was a great motivator although we still had 20km to go.  After we hit the valley it was breakfast time and we completed the last 16km (not as straightforward as we hoped) in a decent time of just over 2 hours.   

 It was brilliant arriving in Chamonix together,on a hot Saturday morning, having spent 22 hours and 46 minutes, never being more than a few minutes apart during the whole event.  The crowd support was excellent and I felt a tear or two in my eyes as we finished. A very well-organised event in fantastic mountain country with wonderful weather.  My thanks also to John for his company.  We had a nice 5 days away and I would certainly recommend anyone to make a visit whether or not you end up doing this event or the 163km total circuit in 46 hours.  I’ll settle for the 86km event, thank you very much!

Philip Smith