The Tour du Mont-Blanc when you're afraid of heights : where the exposure really is, and how to get around it

Nearly everyone who books the Tour du Mont-Blanc asks some version of the same question: is there a narrow path with a drop right beside it, and what happens if I freeze halfway across.

Here's the honest answer, in two sentences. Over the roughly 170 kilometres of the route, there are three spots where the exposure is real, and put together they add up to less than an hour of walking. All three can be got around, one of them by a waymarked path whose track you'll find further down this article.

Nature and mountain guides, we cross these spots several times a season, often with someone in the group who isn't too fond of the exposure. This article tells you where they are, what they actually involve, what makes them harder on certain days, and how to avoid them without missing out on anything the tour has to offer.

"Exposed" can mean two quite different things, and that's where the confusion starts

Up in the mountains, a spot described as "exposed" can mean two things that have nothing to do with each other. Exposed to a drop means a possible fall. Exposed to the elements means an open ridge with no shelter, where a storm can catch you out.

The TMB is exposed to a great degree in the second sense, and hardly at all in the first. The Grand Col Ferret (2,537 m), Col de la Seigne (2,516 m), Col de la Croix du Bonhomme (2,479 m) and Col des Fours (2,665 m) are all billed as exposed, and fair enough, they are, to wind, cold, and afternoon storms. None of the four has a drop beside the path. They're wide, grassy or stony passes, where the real difficulty is picking your timing, not the terrain underfoot.

That distinction alone answers the question for most of the route. The TMB is a wide, well-marked path for over 95% of its length, with plenty of slope underfoot but nothing that looks anything like a ledge above a drop.

What's left is the small percentage we're here to talk about.

The three spots where the exposure is real

The Trè-le-Champ ladders, stage 10

This is the bit everyone talks about, and the only fixed equipment on the classic route. You'll find it on stage 10, from Trè-le-Champ to Refuge de la Flégère, about an hour and a half of climbing through forest from Trè-le-Champ (1,400 m).

Eleven metal ladders one after another cross a rock band, followed by a chimney fitted with steps. Give yourself 30 to 45 minutes from the first rung to Tête-aux-Vents (2,132 m).

Three things are worth knowing, and honestly they're more reassuring than worrying. It isn't eleven ladders run together: they're short stretches, broken up by ordinary path, handrails and the odd step. Most take under a minute, and only one is noticeably taller, around eight metres. Best of all, the ladders lean in against the rock face, they're not vertical, with evenly spaced rungs and handrails all the way.

On a ladder, you're facing the rock. Your hands are busy, the holds are solid, and your eyes are on the next rung, thirty centimetres away. Plenty of people who'd rather not think about heights get through these ladders without a bother, simply because that position doesn't put the drop in view. What tends to unsettle people here is the look of the thing more than the actual exposure.

One practical point nobody thinks to ask about beforehand: there's no harness, no lanyard, no belay point. This isn't a via ferrata, it's fixed rungs. People occasionally turn up expecting to clip in and find there's nothing to clip onto. Better to know that the night before.

The rock-flake ledge, right after

This is the bit people mention least, and the one that trips up the most people.

Above the ladders, a short two-metre stretch has you edging along the cliff on the rim of a rock flake, with about fifty metres of drop below. It's equipped and the footing is wide. But you're no longer facing the rock: you're side-on to it, above the drop, with nothing to hold in front of your eyes.

It's a different kind of fear altogether. On the ladder, the body knows what to do. On the ledge, there's nothing ahead to grab onto, and the eyes drift naturally to exactly the wrong spot. In our experience, when someone freezes along here, it's nearly always at this point, not on the ladders they'd been dreading for three days.

Two things make all the difference here: keep one hand on the cable, and fix your eyes on the exact spot where your foot's about to land, not on the ground fifty metres down. It doesn't take long. Ten seconds and it's behind you.

The Col du Brévent ladders, stage 11

Here's the blind spot in all of this. Plenty of people prepare for the Trè-le-Champ ladders, get through them, feel rather chuffed with themselves, and then run into two more ladders the next day they never saw coming at all.

On stage 11, from La Flégère to Les Houches, the climb to Brévent crosses a rocky spur fitted with two metal ladders of 8 and 9 rungs, around 2,400 m, just past Col du Brévent (2,368 m). A handrail sees you out of the section. It's a good deal shorter than Trè-le-Champ and less dramatic, but the ground around it is a jumble of sharp rock, so you'll want to follow the markers carefully.

This spot has one quirk: it comes on the last day, on legs that have already done ten days of walking, and often after a windy pass. Tiredness counts for more here than the exposure does.

And the Bionnassay footbridge, which isn't really the issue

It often gets lumped in with the TMB's scarier spots, and that's not entirely fair. The suspension bridge over the Bionnassay torrent sits on the Col du Tricot variant, so it's off the main route altogether, and it's sturdy, wide, with railings on both sides.

It moves underfoot and the torrent roars away below, which is enough to have plenty of people quickening their step. But there's nothing to actually cross: you walk, you hold the cables, and it's over in twenty seconds. And if it doesn't appeal, the classic route via Col de Voza skips it entirely, without losing anything essential.

The descent from Col du Tricot, on the other hand, is steep and loose underfoot. That's the real thing to keep an eye on with this variant, far more than the footbridge that gets all the attention.

The ladder bypass, measured out

A waymarked path avoids the rock band entirely. It starts at Col des Montets, about fifteen minutes above Trè-le-Champ, passes the visitor chalet of the Réserve naturelle des Aiguilles Rouges, and climbs the valley with no fixed equipment at all.

It adds 2 km and 85 metres of ascent, roughly forty extra minutes of walking. That's the whole of it. The ascent is nearly identical because both routes are aiming for the same spot: the ladders climb steeper, the bypass climbs for longer.

The bit that matters most, and that puts people's minds at ease as soon as we mention it: this path rejoins the TMB at the Tête-aux-Vents cairn (2,132 m), exactly where the ladder section ends, so before the turn-off for Lac Blanc. Skipping the ladders doesn't cost you Lac Blanc, or a single metre of the rest of the tour. All you miss is the rock band.

• Distance :↔ 8.2 km
• Dénivelé positif :↗ 771 m
• Dénivelé négatif :↘ 329 m

Two things worth knowing before you decide.

Decide before leaving Trè-le-Champ. This is the single most useful bit of advice on this whole page. The two routes split down at the bottom, not up at the top. If you head up towards the ladders and stop at the foot of the first one, you'll have to go all the way back down and then up again to Col des Montets, which costs you an hour and a fair bit of morale. Deciding the evening before, back at the refuge, costs nothing.

The bypass isn't exactly flat either, mind you. No fixed equipment and no section above a drop, that's true enough. But it's still a mountain path, with slope underfoot and steep views down into the valley. Anyone whose unease comes just from seeing exposure, regardless of any actual danger, will still find a few moments here that take a bit of nerve. Telling you otherwise would only be setting you up for the same trouble a second time.

Can you do the whole TMB without a single equipped section?

Yes, entirely, and without any mechanical transport if you'd rather not use it.

It comes down to three choices, at the only three points where the question actually comes up:

• Stage 1: Col de Voza instead of Col du Tricot. You skip the footbridge and the steep descent.
• Stage 10: Col des Montets instead of the ladders. You add 2.1 km and 40 minutes.
• Stage 11: the climb to Brévent by the piste instead of the equipped spur, or the Planpraz cable car from Chamonix if your legs have had enough.

The rest of the route runs on wide walking paths. You keep Col de la Seigne, the Grand Col Ferret, the balcony paths of the Italian Val Ferret, Lac Blanc, and the crossing of the Aiguilles Rouges. In other words, you keep the tour.

And if you were thinking about one of the higher variants, the Fenêtre d'Arpette isn't a fear-of-heights problem at all, it's a scree problem: loose blocks, a faint path, no drop. It can be got around via Bovine, but for reasons that have nothing to do with fear of heights. You'll find the comparison of all eleven variants in our article on the Tour du Mont-Blanc variants.

What makes a spot harder, and what helps

The same spot doesn't feel the same from one day to the next. These things matter just as much as the terrain itself.

Rain. Wet metal rungs get slippery, and wet hands don't grip as well. If it rained overnight, give things an hour to dry off, or take the bypass. It's the only factor that turns a psychological difficulty into a real risk.

Early season. Before mid-July, leftover snow on the approach and morning frost on the shaded rungs can make things trickier. It clears during the day though: if you're at all unsure when you wake, give the sun an hour to do its work, or take the bypass, which has no rungs to ice over.

Fog, believe it or not, which helps. Sounds odd, but it's true: when you can't see the bottom, fear of heights eases off quite a bit. Plenty of tricky crossings have gone grand simply because the cloud was down low. Mind you, fog does make the waymarking at Brévent trickier to follow.

The queue. In July and August, day walkers heading up to Lac Blanc create waits that can run to three quarters of an hour at the foot of the tallest ladder. For someone uneasy about heights, that's the real complicating factor: being committed on the rungs with someone right behind you, unable to slow down or step back. Setting off early sorts that out, and so does going first in your group: nobody behind you, and all the time in the world.

Your rucksack. Fifteen kilos changes your balance on a ladder, especially a tall rucksack that isn't cinched down properly. Tighten the hip belt, snug up the shoulder straps, and stow your poles before you reach the foot of the section: two free hands aren't up for discussion.

Tiredness. It amplifies fear of heights, which is why the Brévent ladders, short and easy as they are, sometimes cause more bother than the ones at Trè-le-Champ. The night before a section you're dreading, a decent sleep does more good than an extra stage would.

When it all seizes up: what actually works

Freezing on a section is nothing out of the ordinary, and it says nothing about your ability. It happens to people who've been walking for twenty years. What matters is what you do in the three minutes after.

For the person it's happening to. Stop looking into the distance, bring your eyes back to your hands and feet, and breathe slowly, letting the out-breath run longer than the in-breath. The body settles before the head does. Then move from one exact point to the next, without looking at the rest of it. Loads of people describe the same thing afterwards: the section itself took five minutes, the mental energy it took out of them lasted two hours. Expect to feel wrung out afterwards, and don't line up a big stage right after it.

For whoever's walking with them. Stand in front, not behind: showing where to put a foot helps, pushing doesn't. Talk about the next hold, not the drop, and definitely not about how there's nothing to be afraid of. "Ah sure it's easy" is about the least useful thing you can say, because it just adds shame on top of the fear. A hand held out at the right moment often sorts out what ten minutes of talking never would.

And if it still won't go. Turning back is a mountain decision like any other. On the TMB, right at this spot, it costs an hour and two kilometres. That's not much at all. What costs a lot is forcing someone who's frightened: panic on an equipped section is the real danger, far more than the section itself.

In our groups, this sort of thing usually gets sorted over dinner the evening before, nice and quietly, without turning into a whole group conversation. That's part of what we try to do as guides: get it out in the open beforehand, not at the foot of the ladder.

The direction you walk changes everything

The TMB is walked anticlockwise by the vast majority of hikers, and that's good news: going that way, you climb the Trè-le-Champ ladders.

Clockwise, you're going down them. It's not the same thing at all. Going down, your eyes point downward, your foot searches for the next rung without seeing it, and your rucksack pulls you backward. For someone uneasy about heights, climbing is noticeably more comfortable than going down.

If you're set on clockwise for other reasons, the bypass via Col des Montets works just as well that way round, and it's probably the sensible choice by default.

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