Zugschlusbeobachtungen

But first things first: I was there with a small group of Germans in August 2024, planning to do the Round Trip (Chamonix – Courmayeur – Pointe Helbronner – Aiguille Du Midi – Chamonix) starting early on a Wednesday.

Tickets

The Internet shows information that this round trip is available as an official offer. Either this information is outdated, or the offer is really well hidden away. In practice, the French cannot even tell you the one-way prices of the ropeway on the Italian side, and ropeway staff at the valley station of both sides cannot tell you whether the other side runs at all. And the tariffs all discourage the round trip, return tariff for all ropeways being only marginally cheaper than the one-way. We still decided to do it since it saves some time. We thought.

Names are just, well, names

There is some confusion about the naming of the ropeways. The one running from Chamonix to Aguille du Midi in two sections is called the „Téléphérique de l'Aiguille du Midi“, the spectacular one from Aiguille du Midi to Pointe Helbronner is called the „Telecabine Panoramic Mont Blanc“ (while not touching Mont Blanc at all), and the one from Pointe Helbronner down to Entreves is called „Skyway Monte Bianco“. That last one was reconstructed completely from scratch in 2015, got a new name, and probably also a new location of the lower station. This is vital to not go to the wrong place. In the absence of official abbreviations, I’m going to call them TCAM, TPM and Skyway for the reminder of this article. Yes, I know that TCAM and TPM might have a different meaning to many of my readers, but these puns are intended.

The old ropeway that was replaced by the Skyway had a different name, and the TPM was renamed to its current name a few years ago, probably for marketing reasons. Its old name „Telecabine Vallee Blanche“ was slight less misleading, and when you talk to locals or hotel / restaurant staff about the TPM, nobody will understand what you’re talking about. The old names of the ropeways are obviously impossible to kill.

Mont Blanc Multipass

In advance, I had a friend who is fluent in French call up the Tourist Office in Chamonix and got the information that the best way to plan the round trip would be to purchase the „Mont Blanc Multipass“ which allows you to ride nearly everything in the Chamonix area that doesn’t cross the border. Neither the bus from Chamonix to Entreves/Courmayeur nor the Telecabine Mont Blanc is included. But the Skyway (which is in Italy) is. With the Mont Blanc Multipass you can ride most cableways around Chamonix and the Mont Blanc Express to St.-Gervais-les-Bains and the „Tramway du Mont Blanc“, a cogwheel railway running from Le Fayet to a 2.300 m high top station about half way up the Mont Blanc, and also some local sights in Chamonix including a „4D cinema“. The price for two days is insignificantly higher than the price for one day, so we decided to use the Multipass for part of our departure via St.-Gervais-les-Bains. The Multipass can be ordered and paid online, but that doesn’t save you to use a vending machine to obtain the RFID card that makes up the actual pass. Pricing is dynamic, I have seen the price for our intended two days go up and down during the research. The RFID card costs three non-refundable Euros extra that nobody mentions. When you order online for multiple days, some steps of the buying process will only show the first day. But before you enter your payment data, the correct information is displayed, don’t worry.

After obtaining the QR code that will entitle you to the acual pass, the web page will show you a map of Chamonix and expect you to choose a vending machine that you will use to exchange the QR code for the actual pass. The one at the station is not actually at the station, but at the lower station of the cogwheel "Railway du Montenvers" which is on the far side of the SNCF rails and reachable via a pedestrian bridge. Too bad that that machine didn’t work (just beeped, the other one kept saying „code inconnu“). When I continued to scout the city in search of the bus station, I tried another one at the lower station of TCAM, which immediately issued the actual passes. Lesson learned: Error messages are overrated, and it IS possible to get a pass with validity starting tomorrow. I had the suspicion that the passes would only be issued when they’re already valid.

Chamonix, or "The Party Zone"

Chamonix itself has changed a lot in the 30 years since I spent a ski vacation here. It has become a busy international vacation destination with English being spoken by the majority of tourists and hotel / restaurant staff We were her on a Tuesday and a Wednesday and the town was full with party people. It was almost impossible to get a table for dinner without having decided and reserved beforehand. We also didn't find a bakery („boulangerie“) in the inner city, so we finally bought the (rather expensive and spartanic) breakfast at our hotel. If you plan to spend a night in Chamonix, plan your dinner and breakfast ahead of time.

Téléphérique de l'Aiguille du Midi, or "not today"

The TCAM was opened in 1955 and obviously received new engineering in the 1990ies. From what I have seen without actually riding the TCAM in 2024, the infrastructure looks like the one I have seen in the 1990ies with probably new cabins. Since Chamonix has developed so much, it is no longer possible to ride the TCAM spontaneously, you have to book in advance for a certain time on a certain day, and if you decide in the late morning that you want to ride today, it may not be possible since all available places are booked. The TCAM has been the world’s highest cable car for two decades and still is the highest vertical ascent cable car in the world. Technical data can be looked up on Wikipedia in multiple languages. I especially find the upper section impressive since it doesn’t have a single support pillar, spanning the entire ride between the lower and upper station. This of course causes the cabin to enter the upper station nearly vertically, arriving and departing feels more than riding a big elevator than a ropeway.

Skyway Monte Bianco

The Skyway on the italian side is a „boring“ modern Doppelmayr construction that combines the engineering similiar to the new Seilbahn Zugspitze with the rotating cabins of the Titlis cableway in Engelberg, Switzerland. The Skyway was built in 2015. The top station is on Pointe Helbronner, right at the side of the „lower“ station of TCM. Both stations are different buildings that are directly adjacent to each other, you change buildings without noticing. The line between the two buildings is also the border between France and Italy. Thanks to Schengen not being completely dead yet, you don’t notice that you’re passing a border.

The middle station of Skyway is a big installation, housing meeting rooms and a conference center.

The lower station is not directly inside of Entreves, but in direct vicinity of the southern portal of the Mont Blanc Tunnel (a few meters lower so that the street is about a kilometer from the tunnel portal, crossing the skyway twice).

Both TCAM and Skyway are aerial tramways („Pendelbahn“) with cabins that hold somewhere between 50 and 100 people per ride.

Telecabine Panoramic Mont Blanc

That’s different on the TPM, The Telecabine Panoramic Mont Blanc Panoramic Mont Blanc. This ropeway must have been built by crazy daredevils. It connects the Aiguille du Midi (with its station at 3778 m) with the Pointe Helbronner (3466 m). Pointe Helbronner is the lower end of the line which passes over the Vallee Blanche and the Glacier du Géant in more than 300 meter height over the ground. The ropeway has 36 cabins for 4 persons each, grouped in groups of 3 cabins. The ropeway stops when one set of cabins is in one of the stations to allow passengers to board and exit. That way you get six stops on the trip from one end to the other while the cabin hangs 300 meters over the glacier, making the entire trip a 35 minutes adventure.

I saw the TPM for the first time at some time in the mid 1990ies when I spent a week of skiing in Chamonix and once took the opportunity to take the decent on skis from the Aiguille du Midi. I saw the cabins hanging in the sky over the Vallee Blanche and was immediately in love. I made the decision „some time, you’re going to ride this“. I returned to the Aiguille du Midi without ski five days later, when the weather was too bad for skiing and we decided to take a more closer look at the user visible parts of the ropeways. That’s where I found out that the TPM doesn’t operate in winter. I planned to return some time when the TPM actually runs. I didn’t make it back to the Aiguille du Midi since then (and I didn’t this time), but I surely planned for it. This is the first time I seriously tried, and sadly, I failed. The TPM web page says that it will only run in „good weather“ and we have learned that this probably means „cloudless sky, no wind“. You buy the TPM tickets on Aiguille du Midi or Pointe Helbronner directly at the station, and you neither can book a time slot nor can you pre-buy tickets.

Bus

The Bus from Chamonix to Courmayeur is operated by Arriva Italy in cooperation with SAT Chamonix who runs some of the local transport lines in the Chamonix area. Their web page shows only four trips a day, and when the bus is full they won’t take you. So it’s better to book in advance, and they actually check whether you’re riding the bus you booked. And the buses are not always on time: They don’t get special handling if there is a traffic jam in front of the tunnel. One of our bus rides was an hour late. On the Italian side, the bus stops at the Skyway lower station and on the bus terminal in Courmayeur. The stop on the French side is „Chamonix Sud“ which is not quite in the city center and even a short walk of TCAM lower station. Running only four times a day, that’s a really poor service offer for two sister cities that are just half an hour of a drive apart from each other. That service actually looks like no of the three parties (Chamonix, Courmayeur, Arriva) actually cares.

Rifugio Torino

On Pointe Helbronner, there is the Rifugio Torino, a mountain refuge which found itself suddenly in the middle of tourism when the Skyway was built. It can be reached via an elevator (which is actually part of the foundation of the Skyway upper station) and a tunnel, and we actually planned to spend a night there at 3300 meters. They’re offering their „camera 31“, which looks like a cozy hotel room but sadly, it’s the only hotel room they have to offer. Most of the possibilities to spend the night is like a Touristenlager, and I was not able to convine my travel mates to do that. The people at the Rifugio are kind of reachable by e-mail, take a few days to answer and speak only Italian. Not spending the night at Rifugio Torino solves the issue of TPM probably not being geared for guests with luggage. We had three trolley suitcases and three back packs, that would probably have taken a dedicated TPM cabin for the luggage. The way we took the trip, our luggage stayed at the hotel in Chamonix. Today, spending a night beyond 3000 meters is still on my list. Maybe it’s easier to do that alone.

The actual Trip

So, in the morning, we took the bus from Chamonix to the Skyway. On the way from the hotel to Chamonix Sud, we saw queues already building up at TCAM. The bus ride was boring and rather uneventful. The weather was unfortunately not as beautiful as the five days before, it was overcast, the summits partly in the clouds, and for the midday, thunderstorms were on the menu. At the lower station of the Skyway, they told us that the Skyway would only run up to the middle station and the upper section is out of service due to bad weather, that they didn’t know whether they would operate the second section today at all and that they also didn’t know whether the TPM would be operating.

We were disappointed and sat down to book the bus that would run back to Chamonix an hour later. Right after I clicked on „pay“ and spent another 15 Euros per person, people told us that service to the top station would now begin. We decided that it was already expensive enough and that we would at least go as far as we could. So we boarded the Skyway and went up to Pointe Helbronner in the big cabins that were just filled to a quarter of their capacity without any waiting time.

On Pointe Helbronner, there is the skyway engineering, a cafeteria, some toilets, the elevator to rifugio torino and three stories of outside panorama decks.

And then there is the lower station of the TPM. When we arrived, the TPM was actually running, and a sign said „ouvert“. However, there was no personnel visible, and we decided to scout the building first. Two stories above, on the panorma decks, one could walk up on the roof of the TPM station building which was sprinkled with a bit of snow. Visibility was bad, not even the suspended pylon of the TPM was visible, and that’s just a few hundred meters away from the station. And the TPM was not running any more.

Returning to the TPM entrance, there was still the „ouvert“ sign, but the ticket counter was closed, the blinds closed, and noone visible. We decided to stay and wait for the weather to improve. Weather radar suggested that it would improve over the day, and the late morning bus was already gone, with the next ride through the tunnel to Chamonix leaving only at 15:50. So we had time to wait.

We spent three hours here, and the situation didn’t change. The TPM ran for one „unit“ (until the next set of cabins came into the station) twice, and there were two people in the departure area, but noone ever bothered to walk to the entrance and to give the obviously waiting potential customers information about what would happen. The sign still said „ouvert“ when we left after three hours, without a single passenger arriving or being allowed to board.

While were waiting, we took a closer look at the building and the installations. The arrival / departure area of the TPM is french soil, so you’re crossing the border when you go through the door. At a closer look, you’re actually changing buildings, there is a visible joint on the doorstep, and on the „french“ side you even have french power sockets in the wall. The roof of the building that you can walk to the place where the cabins exit the building is Italian. And if you brought your dog on the round trip, then it’s over here since you cannot take your dog to the TPM. They only bother you tell you right at the entrance to the TPM after you have traveled all the way there.

While over time the weather got considerably better and you could easily see the suspended pylon, there were only short periods of time when the Aiguille du Midi and the middle station of the TPM were visible. The weather app said there was wind between 10 and 20 kph, but that obvioulsly was too much for the TPM to run.

Our Plan B, Courmayeur, Tunnel, Chamonix, Aiguille du Midi vanished when I tried to book a trip with the TCAM as it was already sold out for the rest of the day. At two p.m. we decided to abort and take the Skyway back to Courmayeur to go through the tunnel again.

We decided to take a stop at the middle station that hosts a restaurant, a conference center, an outside playground and a botanic information path displaying a multitude of plants from the alps.

Hangar 2173

And, there is „Hangar 2173“, a small free museum that exhibits some things about the time when Paul Helbronner cartographed the alps. The museum is built on the foundation of the middle station of the old cable car from the 1920ies, displaying one of the old cabins and allows two views into the well where the traction cable of the old cable car was tensioned. Also on display is the old mechanic installation that was used to pull the cable car. It quite obviously is no longer at its original place since it doesn’t fit the tension well at all, but still interesting to look at. Sadly, there is not a word about how that old machine worked.

Traffic Jam up to the Tunnel

The bus arrived on time but made 45 minutes delay in a traffic jam in front of the tunnel. The delay of the bus killed plan C, to at least take the cogwheel railway to Montenvers / Mer de Glace. We missed the last opportunity for a return trip. So it was a nearly completely wasted day without a single meter on rails and having a cable car ride that was more expensive than going to the Zugspitze.

Riding the TPM is going to stay one of the big wishes of my life and I am not sure whether I will make it. It is something you cannot plan. If it was really the weather that prevented TPM from operating on our day of visit, then the Telecabine probably only operates on way less than a hundred days a year. My advice is, if you want to ride the Telecabine: Be fluent in French so that you can talk to the operators, spend more than a day in Chamonix or Courmayeur, book time slots for the ascent to the respective top station in time, and have look. Do not plan the visit as part of a longer trip when you’re only in Chamonix for a day. Chances are too big that the TPM won’t run on „your“ day. Avoid paying for cable car or bus tickets in advance, but it might happen that those tickets may be sold out on „your“ day. Decide early on the day whether to pursue the TPM trip or do an alternative program.