GR5: Geneva to Nice
The most famous section of GR5 is a trek through the French Alps from Geneva lake to Nice. This post is a comprehensive guide for anyone planning to hike GR5.
The most famous section of GR5 is a trek through the French Alps from Geneva lake to Nice. This post is a comprehensive guide for anyone planning to hike GR5.
I remember last year a storm was approaching the pass when we made it up and so we were greeted by a crazy wind. This year the weather was perfect and on the pass it was… still super windy.
Imagine walking through a quiet forest, which occasionally opens the views of majestic mountains surrounding you. You know that tomorrow you’ll have those views all the time, but today you are teased by the trail.
Tour du Mont Blanc (also known as TMB) is a circular trek around Massif of iconic Mont Blanc taking you through three countries: France, Italy and Switzerland. Pretty nice, right? It was indeed a spectacular hike.
Our final day! Mixed feelings about it as the prospect of ditching the backpack and sleeping in a nice comfy bed was very tempting, but I also started already missing the views I’ve been surrounded with in the past 8 days.
Only two days left! Originally this stage ends in Refuge La Flegere, which also supposedly allows camping next to it. It was closed this year, so we had to figure out an alternative. While in Tre-le-Champ I called Refuge Du Lac Blanc to see if they have some space and they did, so our itinerary was approved.
Today we decided to take the alternative route via Refuge Les Grands as it seemed to be more scenic and less crowded. It turned out to be absolutely true. We met only a few people (3 to be precise), walked with a view of at least two glaciers and had lunch in a super cute refuge.
The morning started on a fun note with hikers sharing survival experiences with the fellow “lucky” ones camping. We did not sleep a lot but could not linger too much as a long day was waiting ahead. Today we are combining two stages from the original Cicerone itinerary.
This was one of my favourite sections of the whole hike. Our backs recovered from yesterday and we were ready to conquer the trail again. We were getting used to the weight and the hiking sticks turned into best trail friends. We might actually be able to pull this off.
Here we go! It’s 6:30 AM and we are ready to kick off the TMB, which officially starts in the centre of Les Houches (yes, it actually has a starting point). We walked there all the way from the parking lot to find out that we missed a turn in the trail and needed to go back…