Tour du Mont Blanc – Stage 3 – Les Chapieux to Refuge Elisabetta

Last Updated on July 14, 2025 by Mags Nixon

The photos & some of the account on this post are from when I trekked with my 10 year old daughter and 65 year old mother. The information is correct for 2025 such as the bus times & fare.

Trail Overview

Today on stage 3 of your Tour du Mont Blanc Hike you can choose to catch one of the frequent shuttle buses (called ‘navettes’ in French) from Les Chapieux along the tarmac road to La Ville des Glaciers or Les Mottets parking to save an hour off the trail (see details below).

The trail then ascends to 2516m as you cross the Col de la Seigne, leaving the Vallée des Glaciers and France behind as you cross the border at the top and into Italy! No need to show your passport – there are no border controls on the Tour du Mont Blanc.

It only takes 20 minutes in the shuttle bus to reach La Ville des Glaciers from Les Chapieux.

After a good night’s sleep in Les Chapieux, head down to the tourist information centre housed in the tiny hut 50 metres from Auberge de la Nova. 

From the Col de la Seigne it’s an easy downhill onto the wide, flat valley floor of Vallon de la Lée Blanche – a beautiful U shaped valley. Find Rifugio Elisabetta magnificently perched on a spur of the Pyramides Calcaires, with not one, but two glaciers (Glacier d’Estellette and Glacier de la Lée Blanche) spilling down behind it, almost within reaching distance.

Short Cuts

It’s possible to cut around 1.5 hours off the trail today by taking a shuttle bus from Les Chapieux to either La Ville des Glaciers or Les Mottets parking. The service runs from June 14th – September 14th in 2025. 

I would highly recommend saving your legs by taking this as the trail either walks along a tarmac road (or near to it) so you’re not missing any dramatic scenery.

The shuttle bus costs €5 per person, children 12 and under are free.

You need to buy the bus tickets from a ticket machine near the wooden tourist information hut. You can buy tickets for the following day so if you want to get on the first or second bus the following morning, it’s best to buy your ticket the previous afternoon when you arrive in Les Chapieux. The machine takes cash or contactless.

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LES CHAPIEUX – VILLE DES GLACIERS SHUTTLE BUS ON THE LINK BELOW

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Try to get on the first bus of the day at 7.20 (if you are having a long day combing stages 3 and 4 together to get into Courmayeur the same day) by getting your ticket the night before. The second bus leaves at 7.30, the third at 8.00am. 

You will be dropped off in a large car park at La Ville des Glaciers which is just a small hamlet. There is no accommodation here, just a small collection of farm buildings. It’s here where the Beaufort cheese farm is located.

Some of the navettes go as far as Les Mottets parking but it’s debatable whether this is quicker as instead of a nice steady trail up from Ville des Glaciers, if you get dropped off at Les Mottets parking, you need to take a steep descent down to the refuge and then another steep ascent up the valley to reach the trail.

Note: La Ville des Glaciers is where the Col des Fours variant route joins the traditional trail once more.

There’s a dairy at La Ville des Glaciers so it was nice to check out the beautiful honey colour cows before we set off on the trail. 

The path from La Ville des Glaciers (1789m) is a gentle wide track and takes around 20-30 mins to climb the 100m elevation to the junction of the path coming up from Les Mottets refuge which is nestled below in the valley. It took us around 40 minutes because we spent so long checking out the cows along the way and taking photos.

Looking down at Les Mottets refuge (which has rave reviews) you can see why it’s a great stop off over night – it’s also great to hit the Col de la Seigne on super fresh legs.

The views of the surrounding peaks are magnificent with the Aiguille des Glacier dominating in the background. 

You can check out trip advisor’s reviews on Les Mottets refuge here.

Les Mottets is one of the most expensive refuges on the Tour du Mont Blanc hike, however it is one of the newest (a former dairy farm restored in 2010) so standards are high.

Dorms in 2025 cost €58 half board and you’ll be housed in the former cattle shed on a sleeping platform – this is best for those on a budget but certainly not for those who don’t wish to be face to face with a stranger. A happy medium, if you book early, are the 4 bed dorms which cost €76 per person half board. These are excellent value. Refuge Mottets also have private rooms for two without a shower – still good value at €192 (€81 each). The private rooms for two with a shower shoot up dramatically at €252 (€126 per person) – book early to secure these.

Camping is NOT permitted outside the refuge.

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From here the track now becomes steep and zig zags back and forth. This is the most difficult section of the climb as the gradient does mellow out and the gradient becomes less steep once this short section is out of the way, however it’s all uphill from here to the Col de la Seigne.

The guidebook (Cicerone) describes this section as “the route to the col is neither long nor particularly arduous, although it has a few short, steep sections”, which is completely true as the trail does level off and becomes a more manageable gradient but it does seem particularly long.

Whilst the guide book (Trailblazer) details this section as “the hardest part of the climb is the first section  …. once this is over a narrower trail contours the grassy mountainside, negotiates a couple of streams and then follows a line of cairns across sparsely vegetated slope of false summits to the col.”

Both my mother and 10 year old daughter struggled on this climb but only really towards the top, when the never ending path to the saddle nearly broke them. False summits definitely.

It took my 10 year old daughter & 65 year old Mother 3hrs and 20 minutes to climb the 646m (4.4km) of ascent from the sign at Les Mottets (1870m) to the top of the Col de la Seigne (2516m). The average walker will take 2.5 hours without stops on this section whilst trekkers are estimated to take 2 hours and 10 minutes without stops.

Whether it was the back to back days hiking taking their effect, or merely the false summits teasing us, it was hard to keep spirits high as Col de la Seigne tantalisingly crept nearer.

Make sure you’ve enough bribery snacks if your trekking with kids on this section. It really tested my 10 year old and my mother both. Take a look at the picture of happiness in the photo below!

However, you can also see the fabulous views behind back into the Vallée des Glaciers.

We climbed this section up to the Col de la Seigne on July 11th. You can see below that there are still large patches of snow on the mountainside around us, however none were covering the path and so we did not require our hiking crampons.

 Col de la Seigne, a pass known as far back as Roman times, continued to be used throughout the Medieval period. The favourable climatic conditions during this era meant that mountain passes at high altitudes could be used for a large part of the year. However, it was not until 1863 that the Tour of Mont Blanc, and above all Col de la Seigne, was given pride of place in the tales of English tourists and mountaineers.

It’s a great relief when the summit approaches and you finally see the cairn marking the top of the Col de la Seigne – yippee! 

The Col de la Seigne is the border between France and Italy and it’s a wonderful feeling to have one country on your back and another country laid out before you. There is no border post here at the top of the Col de la Seigne so there’s no need to dig into your pack for your passport.

If you are trekking the TMB half tour from Chamonix to Courmayeur the Col de la Seigne is the highest point of your trek at 2516m. The actual highest point of the classic Tour du Mont Blanc trail is Grand Col Ferret which stands at 2537m. If you are planning to take the variants, the Col des Fours and the Fenêtre d’Arpette stand at an equal height of 2665m

It’s worth being mindful, as you stand admiring the view this frontier border give you, that this high mountain pass saw heavy fighting during WWII between alpine forces of both France and Italy. 

You can now see Mont Blanc again, her white dome bright against the blue sky. Of course, this is entirely weather dependant. In fact clouds came in quickly during the 45 minutes we rested on the summit so I didn’t manage to entirely capture Mont Blanc in full visibility.

Next to the cairn there is a golden disc with engraved waypoints on directing you to various cities in the world. As well as these there are a couple of stone blocks with F and I engraved in them, presumably meaning France and Italy. There doesn’t seem to be much information about them so I don’t know what the 0/7 means. Do you? If so, let us know in the comments!

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Sheltering from the gusty wind in the lee of a bluff, we happily munched on our pique nique lunch (packed lunch) that we’d bought from Auberge de la Nova (€12 each) and admired the view before us. Don’t forget to look out for the small grey stones around 30cm tall by the cairn that marks the col – the stones are engraved with F and I for France and Italy (photo above).

The white clouds danced above our heads, soon obscuring the dome of Mont Blanc, however the peaks of the massif still rose in splendour, particularly the Aiguille Noire de Peuterey, who we would continue to follow as we descended the easy route down from Col de la Seigne.

Having conquered Col de la Seigne, it’s all down hill now to Rifugio Elisabetta, a further 4.5 kilometres along the trail. It’s an easy descent which doesn’t take too much time – around 1.5 hours to Elisabetta.

As you descend this first section, be sure to scrutinise the rocky crags to your left. We spotted lots of marmots here to my daughter’s delight. Listen out for their whistling warning calls.

The trail down into the Vallon de la Lée Blanche is easy to follow. A high ridge line guards the valley to the right, whilst the jagged, savage peaks of the Grand Massif du Mont Blanc dominate to your left.

Half an hour after descending you will pass the tiny former Italian border post, now converted into a museum and mountain information centre called the Casermetta Hut.

This information centre is really interesting. I’d really recommend you stopping to stay a while. Inside they have fascinating displays on the flora and fauna of the region, plus information on the former customs house it used to be. The staff there live in the centre for 3 months of the year and are highly qualified in their field – they can tell you all about the geography, how the mountains were formed and the local area.  

It’s the perfect place to shelter in bad weather also.

The Casermetta hut has wifi – which you probably did not have access to last night as Les Chapieux and Refuge Mottets are located in the only black out stretch of the Tour du Mont Blanc. It’s good to know that if you need to contact friends or family to check in, you can do it here. As you walk into the hut, the wifi code is on the wall.

It takes a further hour from La Casermetta (2365m) descending into the valley to be able to spot Refugio Elisabetta which hides itself perched on a precarious spur.

The path keeps descending crossing a little wooden bridge, which can be washed away in heavy storms. See the Pyramides Calcaires (the two peaks) behind which dominate the landscape on the descent. Its here that the famous UTMB, the ultra trail race diverts from the traditional TMB route and heads up and around the Pyramides Calcaires before re-joining at Rifugio Elisabetta.

The path descents to the valley floor and the wide track now skirts along the side of the valley floor of boggy wet marshland.

The rocky spear of Aiguille Noire ahead of you know becomes your focus as the anticipation of arriving at Refugio Elisabetta grows and spurs us on.

Finally round a bend to see this famous rifugio clinging to the landscape on a grassy spur extending from one of the Pyramides Calcaires that we’ve been skirting for the last hour. Indeed, the backdrop to the rifugio of not one, but two glaciers snaking down the jagged rocks behind is breathtaking. 

The remote nature of Rifugio Elisabetta with the sheer magnificence of its setting attracts many TMB trekkers to overnight at this basic refuge. The numbers can swell up to 100 in peak summer months meaning dinner can be chaotic. The location is unbeatable – and as only one of two accommodation at the end of stage 3, it’s a good idea to try to book Elisabetta as early as you can. If you don’t want to run the gauntlet of which dorm you’ll be put into (Elisabetta has a triple bunk bed dorms & long sleeping platforms in the attic) then book a private room. Rifugio Elisabetta is a private rifugio meaning you can’t book it on the official TMB website – email David on info@rifugioelisabetta.com

After 8hrs on the trail today (remember I’m trekking with a 10 year old) we were hugely happy to reach our destination. The happiness quickly evaporated however on being shown to our reserved dorm beds. We’d been allocated a sleeping platform snuck into small alcove high in the attic, with no windows, and the door to the staff accommodation literally where our heads lay.

Thankfully, and surprisingly we were able to change to a private 2 bed bunk room (with a pull out) with marvellous views out over the glacier! The universe certainly provided and it was with great relief that we shook off our now heavy packs and relaxed into our new quarters.

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Read day 4 (stage 2) Nant Borrant Refuge to Les Chapieux

Read day 5 (stage 3) Les Chapieux to Refugio Elisabetta

Read day 6 – Tour du Mont Blanc – Stage 4 – Rifugio Elisabetta to Courmayeur

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