Courmayeur · Italy
The Mont de la Saxe balcony
This is the best cheap view in the valley. The path from Villair climbs through the wood and emerges here, and the entire Mont Blanc range is laid out in front: the Grandes Jorasses to the right, the Peuterey ridge and the summit to the left, the valley between them. It costs nothing but the time of the ascent. It is also a stretch of the Tour du Mont Blanc, the path that circles the massif through Italy, Switzerland and France, so that on a summer morning one meets people who left Chamonix a week before and will return there in another. Courmayeur is roughly halfway round, which is why the hut is always full and the boots outside the door are always wet.
Go deeper
How long is the Tour du Mont Blanc?
About 170 kilometres and ten thousand metres of climbing, usually over ten or eleven days. By tradition it is walked anticlockwise, though nothing stops you going the other way, and those who do meet everybody else.
How do you get up here?
On foot from Villair, an hour and a half to two hours on a well-marked path. It is a steady climb through the wood and then it opens all at once, which is the best part of it.
Can you carry on along the ridge?
Yes, and it is worth it. From the hut the Mont de la Saxe crest carries on towards the Testa Bernarda and the Col Sapin, with the Jorasses in front of you the whole way. It is one of the finest high walks in the Alps and it asks nothing technical of you.
Where it is
More stories in Courmayeur
- The Aiguille Blanche
- The Aiguille Noire
- Duke of the Abruzzi Alpine Museum
- The Brenva Spur
- The Guides' House
- Church of Saint Pantaléon
- The quiet col
- The Col de la Seigne