France · French Alps
Chamonix
The birthplace of alpinism and still its capital: a working valley town under the highest summit in the Alps, with a cable car off the high street to 3,842 m.
Chamonix sits at about 1,035 m on the floor of a narrow Haute-Savoie valley, directly under Mont Blanc, the highest summit in the Alps at just over 4,800 m. The first ascent in 1786 is when mountaineering became a pursuit, and the valley has been the headquarters of the sport ever since. What makes it unlike most Alpine resorts is how much serious mountain an ordinary visitor can reach without climbing: cable cars and rack railways built for alpinists lift anyone with a ticket onto glaciers and granite at nearly 3,800 m. It is a working town with a year-round population, not a purpose-built resort.
Suggested stay
3–7 days
Language
French
Currency
EUR
Timezone
UTC+2
Why you'll love Chamonix
The scale the valley floor sits at 1,000 m and the summit ridge at over 4,800 m, so the mountain is not a distant view but a wall of nearly 4 km over your hotel.
The access lifts and rack railways built for climbers hand the high mountain to anyone with a ticket, which is why a first-time visitor and a working alpinist ride the same cable car.
The seriousness a town organised around the mountains rather than visitors, with a guides' company running since the 1820s, a rescue service flying most days in season, and bar talk about conditions rather than nightlife.
The two seasons deep winter is short, shaded and cold, and exactly when the snow is best, while the long summer opens the huts and balcony paths - the same mountains, two different holidays.
Best time to visit
May-Sep
18-24° days
45.923° N, 6.870° E
UTC+2 · Europe/Paris
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Weather & when to go to Chamonix
Month by month: typical highs and lows, rainfall and rain days.
✓ Best May-Sep
Cards tinted by calculated verdict · big number = typical daily high, small = low · hover for conditions
When to avoid Chamonix
The dead weeks are the changeovers, roughly November and much of May, when lifts close for maintenance, many hotels and restaurants shut, and there is neither settled snow nor an open high trail. Midwinter is cold, short on daylight and shaded, the price of the best skiing of the year. High summer is the opposite: valley full, approach road loaded, everything booked out around the late-summer ultra-trail race.
Top things to do in Chamonix
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Aiguille du Midi - the cable car to 3,842 m and the Step into the Void
scenic adventure 👍 PopularTwo stages from the edge of town to a granite spire at 3,842 m, the upper one crossing to the summit station in a single unsupported span that was an extraordinary thing to build in the 1950s and still feels like it. At the top there are terraces looking straight across at Mont Blanc, a lift up through the rock to the highest deck, and a glass-floored box cantilevered out over a drop of more than a kilometre. Take the altitude seriously: you gain roughly 2,800 m in about twenty minutes with no acclimatisation, and headaches, breathlessness and the occasional faint are routine up there. Dress for well below freezing whatever the valley is doing, and expect the whole thing to shut when the wind gets up.
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Mer de Glace and the Montenvers railway - the rack train to the glacier
scenic history 👍 PopularA cog railway opened in 1908 climbs from the town to Montenvers at about 1,913 m, where the longest glacier in France runs away below the Drus and the Grandes Jorasses. A gondola and then a long flight of metal stairs drop you to an ice cave cut fresh into the glacier every year. The stairs are the exhibit nobody planned: markers on the rock wall show where the ice surface stood in living memory, and more steps get added as it keeps falling. There is a small glacier museum at the top and a mountain hotel that has stood there since the 1840s.
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Vallée Blanche - the glacier descent from the Aiguille du Midi
snow adventure 👍 PopularChamonix's signature ski descent and the reason a lot of skiers come at all: roughly 20 km down the glacier system from the top station to the Montenvers train, or all the way to the valley when the snow is deep enough. It is not a piste. It starts with an exposed snow arête that is normally walked down roped to a guide, then crosses hours of unmarked, unpatrolled, crevassed glacier with seracs hanging over parts of the route. Go with a guide, carry a harness, rope and transceiver, and accept that conditions rather than your booking decide whether it happens. It is a winter and spring outing, best once the crevasses are well bridged and the days have some length in them.
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Le Brévent and La Flégère - the sunny side, facing the massif head-on
scenic snow ⭐ Highly recommendedThe lifts on the north-west wall of the valley are where you go to look at the mountain rather than stand on it, because they face Mont Blanc square across the gap. Le Brévent tops out around 2,525 m on rocky ground well above the trees and links along the ridge with La Flégère; in summer the terrace below it is one of the busiest paragliding launches in the Alps, and in winter this is the sunniest skiing in the valley. The Grand Balcon Sud path runs between the two mid-stations on an almost level line, which makes it the easiest big view in Chamonix.
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Lac Blanc - the Aiguilles Rouges walk with the reflection
hiking scenic nature wildlife ⭐ Highly recommendedThe classic valley hike: up from the Flégère or Index lifts into the Aiguilles Rouges nature reserve to a lake at about 2,352 m that holds the whole Mont Blanc range upside down in it on a still morning. It is a real mountain walk over rock and old snow rather than a stroll, the refuge beside the lake is busy, and the water is often still frozen or ringed with snow into early summer. Ibex and chamois are common in the reserve, and the light is far better before the afternoon cloud builds.
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Grands Montets, Argentière - the steep north-facing mountain
snow adventureThe valley's serious ski mountain, above Argentière on north-facing ground that keeps cold snow long after the sunny side has gone heavy, with the Argentière glacier basin and a long list of off-piste lines underneath it. It has been one of the defining freeride mountains of the Alps for decades and it is not a beginner's hill in any weather. Lift access to the very top has changed over the years, so check what is actually running before you build a day around it.
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Les Houches and the Kandahar - the World Cup downhill and the family side
snowDown-valley, lower and set among trees, which makes it the place to ski when the weather closes in higher up and the natural home of families and improving skiers. It also holds La Verte, the Kandahar course, a genuine men's World Cup downhill with a steep, rutted finish that is open to anyone the rest of the winter. In summer the cable car and the gondola open easy walking on the Prarion side with the Bionnassay glacier hanging opposite.
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Le Tour and the Balme bowls - gentle high ground at the head of the valley
snowThe area above Le Tour is open, sunny and rolling rather than steep, which makes it the friendliest lift-served skiing in the valley and a sane place to learn to ski off-piste rather than to prove anything. The mountain runs over the back of the col to Vallorcine, so a day can finish in a different village and come home on the valley train.
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Mont Blanc - the normal route and what it actually asks
climbing adventureThe summit stands a little over 4,800 m and gets re-surveyed regularly, because the top is a dome of ice that changes with the season. The usual line from this side climbs from the rack railway at Nid d'Aigle to the Goûter hut, over the Dôme du Goûter and along the Bosses ridge, and it is a glaciated climb rather than a walk: crampons, ice axe, rope work, acclimatisation and a settled forecast. The crossing of the Grand Couloir below the hut is a notorious rockfall trap that kills people most summers, places in the huts on the route are controlled and checked, and guides turn parties round for conditions constantly. If you have not climbed at altitude before, this is not the mountain to start on.
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Compagnie des Guides de Chamonix - the oldest guides' company in the world
climbing historyFounded in 1821 after an avalanche on Mont Blanc killed three guides, the company still operates out of the middle of town and is how most visitors reach serious ground safely: the glacier descent, the classic ridges, ice climbing, ski touring and the summit itself. The high mountain office in the same building is where you go for conditions, avalanche bulletins and hut information before committing to anything, and it is used by locals as much as by visitors.
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Tour du Mont Blanc - the trek that circles the massif
hiking adventureThe best known long walk in the Alps runs around 170 km right around the massif through France, Italy and Switzerland, and Chamonix is the usual place to start it, finish it or bail out of it. Most walkers take a week and a half and sleep in refuges, which fill months ahead for the summer. The valley's own stretch, over the Col de Balme or the Aiguillette des Posettes, makes an easy day out of town; the high cols hold snow into early summer and the huts close for the winter.
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Les Gaillands - the roadside crag where the valley learns to climb
climbingA short walk from the centre, a slabby granite crag above a small lake where generations of Chamonix climbers have led their first routes, easy bolted lines at one end and hard ones at the other and an instructor working somewhere on it most days. It is the low-altitude fallback when the high mountain is out of condition, along with the other roadside crags down the valley, while the granite spires of the massif and the Aiguilles Rouges are the real objectives once the season opens.
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Glacier des Bossons and the climb to La Jonction
hiking scenicThe icefall that spills almost into the valley just south of town is the steepest in the massif, dropping from close to the summit in one broken white staircase. A chairlift and a chalet get you near it for the price of a short walk. The full hike above it to La Jonction, where the Bossons and Taconnaz glaciers meet at around 2,600 m, is a long, steep, exposed day and one of the best hard walks in the valley.
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Chamonix town - the statues, the museums and the Savoyard table
food culture artsThe centre is small and walkable along the Arve, with a bronze of Balmat pointing out the summit line to Saussure in the middle of it, an alpine museum in a former grand hotel and a crystal and alpinism collection beside the sports centre. Eating is Savoyard and unapologetically heavy - fondue, raclette, tartiflette, croûte au fromage and diots, with génépi afterwards - which makes a great deal more sense after a day out than in the middle of August. The Saturday market and the big spa on the edge of town are the standard rest-day plan.
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Paragliding off Planpraz - flying the valley
adventure scenicChamonix is one of the busiest flying sites in the Alps, with tandem pilots launching from the terraces under Le Brévent through the summer and landing on the field by the river a few minutes later. It is the one way to see the valley in its proper proportions, and it is entirely weather-dependent, so it tends to be arranged on the morning of the day rather than weeks ahead.
Best areas to stay in Chamonix
$ Budget $$ Mid-range $$$ Premium
Chamonix centre
First-time visitors $$Compact town centre under the lifts
Explore hotels in Chamonix centre →
Les Praz de Chamonix
Quiet with the view $$$Quiet chalet hamlet by the golf course
Explore hotels in Les Praz de Chamonix →
Argentière
Skiers and climbers $$Higher village at the serious ski mountain
Explore hotels in Argentière →
Les Houches
Families $Lower, sunnier village among the trees
Explore hotels in Les Houches →
Vallorcine
Quiet and cheap $Last village before the Swiss border
Explore hotels in Vallorcine →
Live nightly prices from Booking.com, Agoda and others, centred on Chamonix
Getting to & around Chamonix
Getting there
Fly into Geneva and transfer about 1-1.5 hr up the valley by shuttle, bus or car; by rail it is a mainline train to Saint-Gervais-les-Bains-Le Fayet and then the Mont Blanc Express along the valley.
Flight
Geneva Airport (GVA)
Geneva is around 88 km away and the standard transfer takes roughly 1-1.5 hr on the motorway up the Arve valley, longer on winter Saturdays when the whole resort changes over at once. Shared shuttles and private cars meet flights all day and scheduled buses run from the terminal, so almost nobody needs to hire a car for the transfer alone. You cross into France on the way, which is normally uneventful, and the last stretch is a mountain road in winter conditions.
Train
Chamonix-Mont-Blanc station
The Mont Blanc Express runs the length of the valley from Saint-Gervais-les-Bains-Le Fayet, which is the mainline railhead with fast services from Paris and connections from Lyon and Geneva. The same line carries on over the border to Martigny in the Rhône valley, so arriving from the Swiss side is just as straightforward.
Coach
Chamonix bus station
Scheduled coaches serve the valley from Geneva airport and city, and long-distance operators connect Lyon, Grenoble, Turin and Milan. The bus station sits beside the railway station in the middle of town, which makes a coach arrival unusually painless.
Drive
The A40 motorway runs up the Arve valley from Geneva and hands over to the valley road for the last stretch. From Italy the Mont Blanc Tunnel links Courmayeur to the edge of town in about 20 min, tolled, with strict spacing and speed rules inside it. Winter equipment, meaning winter tyres or chains carried in the car, is a legal requirement in these communes through the winter months.
Getting around
Valley bus
Chamonix Bus runs the length of the valley and out to the lift bases, and it is free to anyone holding the guest card that accommodation issues on arrival. In winter dedicated ski buses serve each area and they are the sane alternative to hunting for a parking space.
Free
Mont Blanc Express
The little valley railway stops at Servoz, Les Houches, Chamonix, Les Praz, Argentière and Vallorcine, and it is the fastest way between villages when the road is loaded. Travel within the valley is covered by the same guest card as the buses.
Free
On foot
The centre is small and flat along the river, and the two main lift stations are a walk from most of it. Between villages, though, walking is a hike rather than a commute.
Free
Car
Worth having for the far ends of the valley and for crossing into Italy or Switzerland on your own schedule, and a liability in the middle of town, where parking is tight and the through road jams on changeover days. The lift-base car parks fill early on a powder morning, and winter tyres or chains are required in season.
TBC
Taxi
Available but thin on the ground and worth booking ahead, particularly for an early airport run or for getting home after the last valley train.
TBC
Day trips from Chamonix
Courmayeur, Italy
Full dayItalian side of the massif
Through the mountain, and the language, the food and the light all change. Courmayeur is a handsome stone village with a softer take on a ski town, and a cable car climbs from it to the frontier ridge at Pointe Helbronner for the view down the Italian side. In summer a small gondola crosses the glacier plateau between there and the Aiguille du Midi, which turns the outing into a crossing of the massif rather than a drive; that link does not operate in winter.
Getting there
car | bus
About 40 min each way by car or bus through the Mont Blanc Tunnel
Annecy
Full dayLakeside old town
A canal-laced old town on one of the clearest big lakes in the Alps, with a swimmable shoreline, a cycle path along an old railway line and a castle above the roofs. It is the standard escape when the valley is stuck under cloud or when you simply want a day at a normal altitude, and it gets properly hot in summer.
Getting there
car | bus
About 1.5-2 hr each way by car, or by coach with a change
Geneva
Full dayLakeside city
The nearest city and the airport most people flew into: a lake front and its fountain, the old town on its hill, the international quarter and a set of museums that are a jolt after a valley of ski hire. Remember it is Switzerland, so the money, the phone roaming and the motorway rules all change at the border.
Getting there
car | bus
About 1-1.5 hr each way by car, coach or airport shuttle
Emosson dam and Martigny
Full daySwiss dam and dinosaur tracks
The valley train crosses into Switzerland at Vallorcine, and from Le Châtelard a very steep funicular, a small panoramic train and a second lift climb to the wall of the Emosson dam with the Mont Blanc range standing behind it. A short walk above the reservoir reaches a slab of rock covered in dinosaur footprints. The whole chain is a summer operation and shut for the rest of the year; the railway itself carries on down to Martigny if you want a town at the end of the day.
Getting there
train
About 40 min by valley train to Le Châtelard, then a chain of funiculars
Saint-Gervais and the Tramway du Mont-Blanc
Full dayRack railway to the snowline
The highest rack railway in France climbs from Le Fayet through Saint-Gervais to Nid d'Aigle at about 2,372 m, beside the Bionnassay glacier and at the foot of the normal route up Mont Blanc. It is a slow, lovely climb, the walking at the top is genuine high mountain ground rather than a stroll, and how far up the line runs depends entirely on the season and the snow.
Getting there
train
About 45 min by valley train to Le Fayet, then the tramway
Megève
Half dayChic old ski town
A completely different sort of Alpine resort over the hill: a cobbled square, horse-drawn sleighs, expensive shopping and gentle tree-lined skiing, developed by the Rothschilds in the 1920s as a French answer to St Moritz. Worth the trip for the contrast with Chamonix's working-town seriousness, and for a long lunch.
Getting there
car
About 45 min-1 hr each way by car
A little history of Chamonix
The valley was remote farming country under a Benedictine priory founded around 1091, and the priory is where the name Chamonix comes from. It stayed that way for six centuries: poor, cut off in winter, and known chiefly for glaciers that were then advancing onto its fields. In 1741 two English travellers, William Windham and Richard Pococke, walked up to the Mer de Glace out of curiosity and published accounts of what they saw, and the valley found itself on the map of educated Europe as a place of the sublime. Horace-Bénédict de Saussure arrived in 1760 and offered a reward to anyone who could find a way to the summit of Mont Blanc. It took twenty-six years, and in 1786 Jacques Balmat and Michel-Gabriel Paccard got there, a climb usually treated as the beginning of mountaineering as a pursuit rather than a chore.
Everything since has followed from that. The guides' company was formed in 1821 after an avalanche on the mountain killed three of its men, and it settled who could take clients where; Savoy joined France in 1860 and the valley came with it; the railway arrived in 1901 and the first Winter Olympic Games were held here in 1924. The cable car to the Aiguille du Midi opened in the 1950s as the highest in the world, and the road tunnel under the massif opened in 1965, putting Italy twenty minutes away and heavy freight through the middle of a narrow valley - which is why the tunnel fire of 1999, which killed thirty-nine people and closed it for three years, is still a live memory here. The arguments now are about traffic and air quality in that same narrow valley, the number of people queueing for the normal route up the mountain, and glaciers retreating about as fast as they once advanced.
A Benedictine priory is founded in the valley and gives Chamonix its name.
William Windham and Richard Pococke visit the Mer de Glace and publish accounts that put the valley on the European map.
Horace-Bénédict de Saussure offers a reward for a route to the summit of Mont Blanc.
Jacques Balmat and Michel-Gabriel Paccard make the first ascent of Mont Blanc, the event usually treated as the birth of alpinism.
The Compagnie des Guides de Chamonix is founded after an avalanche on the mountain kills three guides.
Savoy is annexed to France, and Napoleon III visits the valley the same year.
The railway up the Arve valley reaches Chamonix.
The rack railway to Montenvers opens, putting the Mer de Glace within reach of anyone.
Chamonix hosts the first Winter Olympic Games.
The cable car to the Aiguille du Midi is completed, then the highest in the world.
The Mont Blanc Tunnel opens, linking the valley to Courmayeur in Italy.
A fire in the tunnel kills thirty-nine people and closes it for three years.
A severe heatwave thaws permafrost across the massif, rockfall shuts routes on Mont Blanc, and glacier retreat becomes the valley's defining issue.
Know before you go
Payment
Cards everywhere
English
Widely spoken
Wifi
Reliable
Power
Type C / E
230 V, 50 Hz
Dialing
+33
The months our climate read flags to avoid: the wettest, lowest-rated weather of the year.
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FAQs about Chamonix
▸ When is the best time to visit Chamonix?
It depends which mountain you came for, and the two answers barely overlap. For walking, the huts, the balcony paths and the high trails, the long summer is the season, and May through September is when the valley weather is at its best. For skiing, the season is the middle of winter: December, January and February are cold and dark and the valley floor spends much of the day in shadow, and they are also when the snow is deepest and the classic glacier descent is properly in condition. March and April are the compromise many regulars prefer, with good snow still high up and real daylight. What to avoid entirely is the changeover, roughly November and much of May, when the lifts stop for maintenance and a lot of the valley closes.
▸ Do you need a guide for the Vallée Blanche?
Yes, unless you are an experienced glacier traveller with your own partners and rescue kit, and even then plenty of people here still hire one. The route is unmarked, unpatrolled, crevassed glacier, it starts with an exposed arête that is normally descended roped, and the hazards shift week to week with snow bridging and serac fall. Guides get booked well ahead in high season and will cancel on conditions, which is the mark of a good one rather than a wasted day.
▸ How hard does the altitude hit at the Aiguille du Midi?
Harder than people expect, because it is not a climb, it is a lift. You go from about 1,035 m in the town to 3,842 m in roughly twenty minutes with no acclimatisation at all, and mild altitude sickness up there is completely routine: headache, breathlessness, nausea, and every so often somebody fainting on the top deck. Move slowly, do not jog up the stairs to the summit terrace, drink water, and go straight back down if you feel bad, which fixes it. Anyone with a heart or lung condition should ask a doctor first, and small children find it harder than adults do.
▸ Can a fit person just climb Mont Blanc?
Not without alpine skills or a guide, and not on a whim. The normal route is a glaciated climb needing crampons, an ice axe, rope work and genuine acclimatisation, and the weather window matters more than fitness. The Grand Couloir crossing below the Goûter hut is a notorious rockfall trap that kills people most seasons, hut places on the route are controlled and checked, and guided ascents are booked months ahead with acclimatisation days built in. A responsible guide will call it off, and the people who push on anyway are a large part of why the rescue helicopter flies as often as it does.
▸ Do you need a car in Chamonix?
No, and it is often a hindrance. Buses run the length of the valley and out to the lift bases, the little railway links the villages, and the guest card your accommodation gives you covers both, so most visitors get through a whole trip without one. Take a car if you want the Italian side, Annecy or the far ends of the valley on your own schedule, and expect the parking rather than the driving to be the problem.
▸ Is Chamonix good for beginners or families?
Yes, but not in the middle of it. The valley's reputation is built on steep, glaciated, expert terrain, and its ski areas are separate mountains you take a bus between, which is not an easy first ski week. The gentle ground sits at the ends of the valley: the low tree-lined slopes down-valley and the open bowls up at the head of it. Summer is far simpler, because the lifts, the glacier train and the level balcony paths work for almost anyone.
▸ Is the Mer de Glace still worth it if the glacier is shrinking?
Yes, and the shrinking is a good part of what you go to see. The train ride and the view of the Drus and the Grandes Jorasses are unchanged, the ice cave is recut every year, and the marked levels beside the stairs, showing where the ice surface stood within living memory, are the most direct climate exhibit in the Alps. Be ready for a lot of steps down and, more to the point, back up again.
▸ How many days do you need in Chamonix?
Three days covers the cable car, the glacier railway and one good walk or a day on the sunny side, with a spare day in hand for weather, which you will probably need. A week is the normal shape in winter, because the ski areas are separate mountains and you want the days. In summer a week buys the balcony paths, a night in a refuge and a day over in Italy without rushing, and if you are here for a climb or the circuit trek then the mountain sets the calendar, not you.
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