Grand Balcon Sud Hike: Chamonix France

It's 9°C in Canada at the moment and as I sit in my chair looking out at the buds only just starting to appear on the trees, I am reminiscent of a summer hike with my sister in one of the most beautiful landscapes that I had seen in all of France, Chamonix.

Town of Flégère next to Chamonix

On this trip I introduced my sister to my way of travelling, which involves waking up at 2am and driving through the night to arrive at our destination first thing in the morning.

She was a good sport about the early rise and didn't complain in the slightest. I told her to sleep in the car while I drove but she actually stayed up all night keeping me company.

She's a night owl I think.

Unfortunately my wife had to stay home to care for our dog who got sick unexpectedly. She missed the entire trip, which I regret horribly.

Southern Balcony

Valley with a Stunning View

Our first activity upon arrival was a mountain hike along the Grand Balcon Sud or "Large Southern Facing Balcony" in English.

Mont Blanc

It's an absolutly stunning hike known for its amazing views of Mount Blanc, which stands enormously tall directly across from it.

We arrived in the neighboring town of Flégère at 9:00am and parked our car a short distance away from the main parking lot, because it was full of course, not because we wanted to walk an extra 10 minutes. Apparently even getting there early is no guarantee that spaces will be available.

From there we took a cable car to midway up the mountain.

Top of the Cable Car

We got a little bit lost up there at first as we tried to figure out which way to go. There were many different paths to follow, each leading to a different land mark, and the map wasn't exactly clear to us.

I didn't realize that the Grand Balcon Sud wasn't the name of a particular hiking path but more of a generalized name for a part of the mountain. Basically it was a location not a trail.

Do not follow road under cable car station.

We turned right at the top of the cable car and followed the road beneath the station.

Passing below 2nd cable car not good

We actually should have turned left outside the station and followed the path past the 2nd lift on the mountain. Then it would have been basically a straight shot along a set path.

Instead we headed right and down the hill and ended up well below the path we meant to be taking.

The sign route that we started to follow was called Planpraz but at some point along the way it just sort of stopped on us and we couldn't find it again.

Where did Planpraz Go?

At this point of our hike we were just below La Charlanon which was a landmark destination at the middway point of the hike.

We didn't realize that though because below the site it didn't look anything like the La Charlanons description online.

It was here that we lost the planpraz path when it just sort of stopped unexpectedly.

We were below it as well I think. Both Planpraz and La Charlanon were actually about 50-100 meters above us. Is it getting confusing for you too?

"Where the hell are we!?!"

From there we started heading even further down the mountain toward Chamonix, that was until we ran into another hiker who informed us of our mistake and pointed us in the right direction.

"Head back that way, back up the mountain."

The detour wasted a lot of time and was pretty frustrating but I guess we did get to see a different path, more of the mountain and prolong the hike a little...

We headed up again and eventually found the La Charlanon marker and the Planpraz path connected to it.

The entire hike was supposed to be something like 2 hours or so but we basically doubled that time with our wandering mistakes.

The original estimated time frame made a lot of sense once we were actually on the correct path because it was fairly direct and pretty fast going from there.

There were some ups and downs of course but nothing too major that we couldn't handle.

Not surprisingly there were also a lot more people hiking the main trail.

We hadn't really seen anyone except our helper buddy until we got to the correct trail, then there were more and more people walking and more and more instances of moving out of the way to allow faster hikers to pass or hoping that others would do the same for us.

This massive rock was in the center of the path near our final destination and I thought it was pretty cool looking.

As you can see it has become a spot for people to leave their mark on the trail.

Our final destination for the hike was a mountain restaurant called Altitude 2000, which I'm guessing means that it sits at an altitude of 2000 meters.

It's pretty much directly above the city of Chamonix and can be accessed by a cable car if the cars happen to be running. If you were feeling ambitious you could probably hike up at Flégère and then down at Chamonix and walk or get an Uber back to your starting location. That was too much for us but it would be possible if you planned it out correctly. Anyway, we were approaching our destination where we could get some food and take a break from our walk before turning around and heading back to our car. Until then, thanks for stopping by.

If you are interested in seeing more of our trip then stay tuned, there's more to come.