Plan Your Trip | Multi-Day Treks | Hiking Hotspots | Where To Stay
The French Alps is home to some of Europe’s best and most easily accessible hiking. The headline routes are the big muti-day treks — the Tour du Mont Blanc through three countries, the GR54 through the Écrins, the GR5 from Lake Geneva to the Mediterranean. But, most people who come here walk day trails from an alpine resort, and the French Alps is set up for exactly that.
Lifts cut a thousand metres off the climb, buses run to trailheads, and you can be back in the valley for dinner. Start with the balcony trails above Chamonix — Lac Blanc, the Grand Balcon Nord, the Aiguillette des Posettes — or the lake-and-ridge routes around Annecy, where you can walk a flat canal path in the morning and grind 1,188 m up La Tournette the next day from the same bed.
When you’re ready for the long stuff, the Tour du Mont Blanc is the obvious first multi-day trek — 170 km through France, Italy and Switzerland, sleeping in refuges. The Tour des Écrins (GR54) is harder and emptier, circling the Écrins National Park over 14 cols. The Tour du Queyras (GR58) is the gentle one, with 300 days of sunshine a year and gîtes that will move your bag between villages.
It’s no secret that the French Alps offer some of the best hiking in France. This is where big-mountain terrain provides epic multi-day trekking opportunities, and the most remote refuges. It’s also a region that rewards you year-round. Many of the valleys and passes you’ll hike in summer transform into world-class skiing terrain in winter, and the lift-accessed trails double as some of Europe’s best mountain biking when the snow melts. Spend a rest day watching wings stack up over the Semnoz and you’ll understand why paragliding in the French Alps is a religion here too.
Summer is when the Alps really open up on foot. Almost nothing high is walkable before mid-June; the cols clear properly from the second week of July, the refuges swing open their doors, and you can walk for days through terrain that feels genuinely wild despite being a few hours from a motorway. If you’re here before the snow has gone, head south instead — hiking in the South of France and hiking in the Pyrenees both come good weeks earlier.
Plan Your Hiking Trip
Everything you need to lock in before you go — where to sleep, how to get from the airport to the trailhead, and what to carry once you’re on it.
The best multi-day treks in the French Alps
With countless trails weaving through this iconic mountain range, hiking in the French Alps is more than just a walk—it’s an adventure. These are the long circuits and traverses worth booking time off for. If you’d rather walk from a single base and be back for dinner, skip down to the hiking hotspots. Ready to hit the trails? Here are some of our favourites:
1. Tour du Mont Blanc
Distance: 170 km
Elevation gain: 10,000 m
Duration: 7-11 days
Start / finish: Les Houches (loop)
Best months: Late June – mid September
Level: Challenging
The Tour du Mont Blanc, or TMB for those in the know, is undoubtedly the most famous multi-day trek in the Alps. As the name implies, this is high altitude walking around Europe’s highest mountain. You hike a total distance of 170 km and cover more than 10,000 m of vertical drop. See the majestic Mont Blanc from every angle and be rewarded with an ever changing mountain landscape with stunning views over Alpine peaks, glaciers, valleys and meadows. Book early — refuge bookings for the following summer open in mid-October and the popular huts are gone within days. The Tour du Mont Blanc should be on every serious walker’s hit list.
2. Walker’s Haute Route – Chamonix to Zermatt
Distance: 204 km
Elevation gain: 14,300 m
Duration: 13-14 days
Start / finish: Chamonix, France → Zermatt, Switzerland
Best months: Mid July – mid September
Level: Challenging
The Haute Route is a classic long distance Alpine trek and one that should be on every serious walker’s bucket list. It starts in Chamonix and finishes under the Matterhorn in Zermatt — so two-thirds of it is Swiss, and you should budget accordingly. Spend a fortnight crossing high cols and glacier moraine, hiking from refuge to refuge, including the Bertol Hut which overlooks the Bertol Pass south of Arolla. The route was pioneered in 1924 and you’ll trek among 4,000 m peaks in the footsteps of the early Alpine explorers. The walker’s variant isn’t technically difficult, but you do need to be fit and able to string together long days on steep ground. Note that Swiss mountain rescue is always charged and expensive — check your travel insurance covers both countries.
3. Mer de Glace Hut-to-Hut – Refuge du Couvercle
Distance: 29 km
Elevation gain: 1,300 m
Duration: 3 days
Start / finish: Chamonix (Montenvers railway)
Best months: July – early September
Level: Moderate
In the heart of the Mont Blanc Massif, the Mer de Glace stretches from Chamonix’s granite needles to the Aiguille Verte and the Grandes Jorasses on the boundary between Haute-Savoie and the Aosta Valley. This three-day hut-to-hut is a great introduction to high Alpine trekking, with the ground underfoot changing from rock to ice to snow, and a night in the Refuge du Couvercle — one of the most spectacular positions in the Mont Blanc range. If you only have a day, take the Montenvers railway up and walk down instead (6.6 km, 2h30), or link Montenvers to Plan de l’Aiguille on the Grand Balcon Nord (18.5 km, 7h15). Both are on our hiking in Chamonix guide.
4. Tour des Ecrins (GR54)
Distance: 184 km
Elevation gain: 12,800 m
Duration: 10-15 days
Start / finish: Le Bourg-d’Oisans (loop)
Best months: Late June – mid September
Level: Expert
The Parc National des Ecrins is France’s largest and highest National Park. With jagged peaks, tumbling glaciers, cascading rivers and steep-sided valleys, the Massif des Ecrins is one of the most challenging of alpine environments for walkers. The GR54 long-distance trail carves a circular route through these mountains and is considered one of the toughest multi-day treks in Europe. The circuit covers 184 km and 12,800 m of vertical ascent over 14 cols, and you can start it at Le Bourg-d’Oisans, L’Argentière-la-Bessée, La Chapelle-en-Valgaudemar or La Grave. Some stages have no resupply, so carry food. Remember that dogs are banned outright in the park’s core zone — not even on a lead — and bivouac is only permitted between 7pm and 9am, an hour’s walk from the boundary. French Alps Trekking do the full circuit over 10 days, or a shorter 6-day trek covering 100 km in the southern section of the park.
5. Tour du Queyras (GR58)
Distance: 130 km
Elevation gain: 7,900 m
Duration: 8 days
Start / finish: Ceillac or Abriès (loop)
Best months: Late June – late September
Level: Moderate
The Parc Naturel Régional du Queyras borders Italy in the Hautes-Alpes. With 300 days of sunshine a year and Europe’s highest permanently inhabited village at Saint-Véran, the Queyras offers a different kind of Alpine experience. The GR58 circuit takes you through authentic mountain communities where sundials still mark the hours, past high passes like Col de Chamoussière at 2,884 m, and alongside turquoise lakes reflecting the jagged peaks of Monte Viso. Expect clear signposting, welcoming gîtes, and the option to transfer your pack between villages — which makes this the friendliest of the big French circuits. The full loop typically takes 8 days, though some guides offer a shorter 6-day trek covering the wildest southern section.
6. GR5 – Grande Traversée des Alpes
Distance: 620 km
Elevation gain: 29,210 m
Duration: 30-40 days
Start / finish: Thonon-les-Bains → Nice
Best months: July – early September
Level: Expert
The Grande Traversée des Alpes is the GR5 through France — the full length of the French Alps on foot, from Lake Geneva at Thonon-les-Bains to the Mediterranean at Nice. It’s 620 km with a brutal 29,210 m of ascent, and around 100 refuges and gîtes strung along the way, so most people walk it in stages over several summers rather than in one 5-6 week push. The route runs through the Chablais, the Beaufortain, the Vanoise, the Queyras and the Mercantour, with the GR55 offering a high-level variant through the Vanoise and the GR52 an alternative finish to Menton. If you want to sample it, the Chablais-to-Vanoise section from Thonon to Modane is the classic two-week bite. Finish the whole thing and you drop out of the Mercantour to the Côte d’Azur for a well-earned swim.
Hiking Hotspots in the French Alps
You don’t need two weeks and a refuge booking to hike well in the Alps. Base yourself in one valley, walk a different trail every day and let the lifts do the climbing. These are the two towns we keep coming back to — hiking in Chamonix for the glacier balconies and 350 km of marked trail under Mont Blanc, and hiking in Annecy for lakeside loops in the morning and 2,351 m of La Tournette the next day.
Hiking in Chamonix
Hiking in Annecy
Where to Stay for a Hiking Trip in the French Alps
Where you sleep decides what you can walk. Valley bases put you on a lift network and a bus route — Chamonix for the Mont Blanc balconies, Annecy for the Bornes and the Bauges, Le Bourg-d’Oisans or Briançon for the Écrins, Ceillac for the Queyras.
On the long circuits you’re in refuges instead, and that’s a different booking problem entirely. The FFCAM runs around 120 huts across France and takes bookings online; on the Tour du Mont Blanc, refuge bookings for the following summer open in mid-October and the popular ones are gone within days. Expect mixed dorms of 6 to 20, demi-pension as standard, and bring a sleeping bag liner — it’s mandatory, not optional. Counterintuitively, June and September now fill before July and August, so if you’re flexible, high summer can be the easier booking.
TECHNICAL HIKING GEAR
Please leave a comment below if you need specific advice for your hiking trip to the French Alps, or if you have any recommendations to help us improve this guide. Happy holidays!
Can you tell me the spot where the main image is taken?
Hi Stephen, thanks for your comment!
It was taken from Bellevue Plateau above Les Houches along the southern stretch of the Tour du Mont Blanc.
Hope that helps!
Matt