While many of the wonderful Tour du Mont Blanc refuges will feature on your ideal self-guided hiking itinerary, what do you do if they have no availability when you go to book your own trip? In this blog post, I’m going to share accommodation booking tips and my top 4 booking tricks for finding accommodation that will keep your trip alive.
It costs 500 Swiss Francs to plan your own 6-day hike in Bernese Oberland, Switzerland.
This cost will vary depending on the number of days on the trail, and your accommodation, food, and transport preferences. So, how do you calculate how much it will cost for your trip? Here are a few sample itineraries using actual 2024 costs to help you out!
The Europaweg Trail between Grächen and Zermatt is one of the most famous two-day hikes in the Alps, as well as forming part of the Walker’s Haute Route and Tour of Monte Rosa. In the past few years, there has been some confusion about where exactly the Europaweg trail goes, due to the original route still appearing on some outdated maps, apps and guidebooks. In this updated post, I share details about the Europaweg trail, clarify where the route goes and share a brief history of trail changes in recent years.
It costs €826 to plan your own 10-day hike of the Tour du Mont Blanc. This amount comes from our new cost calculator for the Tour du Mont Blanc, which uses over 300 actual customer itineraries and 2023 costs from nearly 100 accommodation and service providers along the trail.
the calculator is for self-guided hikers to estimate how much it will cost them to organise their own hike of the Tour du Mont Blanc based on their preferences. Give it a try!
How much it costs to hike the Walker’s Haute Route is one of the most common questions I’m asked. Armed with my accounting background and mission to make every hikers self-guided dreams come true, I’ve dug deep into the numbers across all the different accommodation types, food and services available to provide firm guidance on what it costs to hike the Walker’s Haute Route.
Stacey Hardin is a hiker, Doctor of Physical Therapy, and athletic trainer that grew up with the Pacific Crest Trail in her backyard. Stacey’s experience on the Tour du Mont Blanc confirmed that there are a huge number of preventable injuries that impact bucket list hiking trips each year.
In this guest blog post, Stacey breaks down the factors that cause injuries on the trail and introduces a few simple exercises that can address one of them to start preparing your body for hiking in the Alps.
Most people take between 8 and 15 days to hike the Walker’s Haute Route. Anything quicker requires Olympic speed walking or part trail running; anything longer would allow for frequent breaks and a relaxed trekking pace.
Since 2018, we’ve produced 100’s of personalised hiking itineraries that have helped 1000’s of hikers confidently plan their Walker’s Haute Route. It all starts with guiding hikers through the following 4 steps to determine how long it will take them to hike the Walker’s Haute Route.
Most people take between 7 and 13 days to hike the Tour of Monte Rosa. Anything quicker requires Olympic speed walking or part trail running; anything longer would allow for frequent breaks and a relaxed trekking pace.
Since 2018, we’ve produced 100’s of personalised hiking itineraries that have helped 1000’s of hikers confidently plan their adventures through the Alps. It all starts with guiding hikers through the following 4 steps to determine how long it will take them to hike the Tour of Monte Rosa.
Most people take between 6 and 12 days to hike the Tour du Mont Blanc. Anything quicker requires Olympic speed walking or part trail running; anything longer would allow for frequent breaks and a relaxed trekking pace.
Since 2018, we’ve produced 100’s of personalised hiking itineraries that have helped 1000’s of hikers confidently plan their Tour du Mont Blanc. It all starts with guiding hikers through the following 4 steps to determine how long it will take them to hike the Tour du Mont Blanc.
Hiking time estimates are the backbone of any hiking plan and directly impact the overall experience.
Given that standard time estimates don’t work for over 80% of hikers, The Hiking Club has come up with a way for hikers to personalise time estimates so that anyone can create an achievable and enjoyable hiking plan.
Is it really 2023 already? 😲
2022 was a big year. We launched new trails, tested new products, grew the community to 10,000, and continued to support self-guided hikers to plan, prepare and complete their epic Alps adventures. Phew, time for a break 🎄🏝🥞
Apr: Launched hiking time calculator for Tour du Mont Blanc, Walker’s Haute Route and Tour of Monte Rosa to help you quickly estimate how many days it would take you to hike one of the legendary trails
May: Trail expert consultation via phone or email now available
May/Jun: Break The Trail - Live trail updates to open the 2022 hiking season including; snow conditions, trail conditions, and transport schedules.
Jun: 2022 Custom GPS map with everything you need to navigate your trail including extra details like the 2022 transport schedules for all the buses, gondolas, and trains along the way.
Jul: Launched a series of 3-day Chamonix base camp hikes.
Summer: Provided real-time trail updates, such as extreme weather, trail route changes, transport changes, and trail conditions.
Aug: 60+ people signed up to test our new accommodation planning tool checker
Oct: Released the 2023 accommodation booking status page to help people know when to start booking their accommodation.
Oct: Partnership with Organic Maps as our preferred map app
Here are a few hints - a new planning app, new trails, and recruitment of more trail experts! Sign up to our newsletter below to keep updated.
Over the past 4 years, The Hiking Club has helped 2,000+ self-guided hikers plan, prepare and confidently navigate legendary trails in the Alps. During this time, we’ve received feedback from some hikers that they struggled to maintain enough mobile phone battery charge when navigating long days on the trail. We’ve experienced this challenge too, and have been searching for a GPS map app that had all the features you need for offline navigation in the Alps, without the heavy battery usage that comes with most apps.
We are happy to share we’ve found an app that ticks all the boxes in Organic Maps, and even happier to announce a new partnership with them to be our preferred navigation map app for 2023 hiking season!
The Bear Trek is located in the Bernese Oberland, Switzerland and is part of the Via Alpina 1 hike that includes 20 stages from Lichtenstein and continues to Montreux, Switzerland. Read Cindy and Bob’s trip report documenting stages 10 - 15 from Meiringen to Lenk, Switzerland. Spoiler: No bears were seen on this hike!
We’ve created a collection of the top mountain huts across Switzerland, France and Italy for hikers. None of these huts require technical gear to reach them - no glacier crossings, no via ferrata, no climbing equipment etc. Most are located in alpine areas and therefore all you need to reach them is good fitness.
We are deep in development and excited to share an update on the current scope and approach to launching our new app.
For those who haven’t heard, our vision for the app is to enable any multi-day hiker to create a personalised itinerary in one session, that is inspiring, achievable, and available to book. The Hiking Club has always been focused on helping self-guided hikers easily plan personalised journeys in the Alps - with Nick coming on board, we finally have the skills to build a trailblazing app 🙌
The Montafon Hüttenrunde (Hut Circuit) is a multi-day hiking trail located in western Austria. Read Julie’s trip report for their 11 day hike starting in Bartholomäberg and ending in Latschau, Austria, staying in mountain huts along the way. They hiked 141km, climbed 7,500m in elevation and reached Seelucke at 2,744m. The trail travelled through the heart of the three very different mountain ranges that frame the Montafon Valley - the moody highland heaths and silent peaks of the Verwall, the sharp dark teeth and looming glaciers of the Silvretta, and the sheer white cliffs of the Rätikon.
September is a month of mixed emotions in the Alps. On one hand, hikers setting out can enjoy the fall colours and quieter trails. On the other, it means the hiking season is coming to an end 😢
Rather than share a typical trail update that would benefit very few people at this stage of the year, I’ve pulled together a collection of interesting data points on who is hiking the legendary trails in the Alps and how they customise their trips.
July 2022 trail updates from the 3 trails we support. In summary, only the Walker’s Haute Route has changes to report - the Tour du Mont Blanc and Tour of Monte Rosa updates remain the same from June. I’ve also shared some news about summit route closures for anyone interested in staying informed about what’s happening higher up with our mountaineer friends too.
I’m en route to the Alps and have revised my Break the Trail hiking plan. The 10 day journey through the Pennine Alps has been designed to spend time on the Tour du Mont Blanc, Walker’s Haute Route, Tour of Monte Rosa, and Tour des Combins.
My revised route still comes in at just over 270 km / 169 mi with an intimidating 19,900 m / 62,000 ft of elevation gain. In this blog, I will share details about the current conditions and my revised route.
