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A journey is best measured in friends, rather than miles. -- Tim Cahill

For the next month and a half you ’ll be heading south, racing the winter to Monaco. The fourth section of the H2H takes you out of Switzerland and into France, through the Chablais (from the Latin “caput lago” meaning “head of the lake”, due to its position on the higher (southern) side of Lac Léman) to the highest peak in the Alps.

It won’t take you long to get back into the high mountains: already by the third day out of Montreux you will be skirting 3,000m peaks. The countryside on this section is among the most varied on the H2H, going from the shores of Lac Léman to deeply carved side valleys of the Rhône, from the stony plateau of the Montagne d’Anterne to the immense, glacier-clad bulk of the Mont Blanc massif.

If you are hiking the whole H2H, then, toughened as you will be by this point, the hikes, although at times substantial, should not present too great a challenge… but accommodation might. The quantity of lodging along the H2H between Montreux and Monaco (with the exception of a few larger towns along the way such as Chamonix and Briançon) is lower than what has been typical so far. Since you can’t reserve more than a couple of days ahead (explained here), you may find that you need to adjust stages on the fly, shortening some, lengthening others, according to where there are rooms available.

This accommodation risk factor has two further implications:

• It underlines the need for lengthy lists of information about potential places to stay, in addition to tourist office telephone numbers (when all else fails you can ring them and beg for help). To help you get started, I've tried to provide links to relevant sites and other useful information on each stage page.
• It makes it important to limit the size of your group. When it is difficult to find beds for four, then on such days it is going to be much more difficult or even impossible to find beds for larger numbers. You won’t want to be faced with the unpleasant decision either to split up (either because the only rooms you can find are in two places an hour’s hike apart, or because some of you go on while others are left behind), or to all take an unwanted rest day. So this may also have to be part of the pre-hike organization of the H2H.

If you are only going to be hiking the H2H in a small group, then the above issues won't impact you. But if you are doing all or a significant percentage of the H2H, then I strongly suggest that you convince some friends and/or relatives to be "guest" hikers, primarily to provide motivation. The H2H is a marathon of marathons... and as such it presents a challenge that is at least as much mental as it is physical: each day you have to find a reason to get up, pull on your boots and pack, and walk out the door. The regular addition of new and friendly conversation partners (with their naive enthusiasm as regards hiking!) makes this much easier. Moreover, having promised to meet your "guest" hikers at specific times or places along the way provides additional motivation to keep going when frankly you would really prefer to chuck your pack over the nearest cliff and take a train to the nearest beach for a month of blissful immobility.

This illustrates, by the way, another benefit of hiking in the Alps: because the public transportation network is so extensive, it is relatively easy for "guest" hikers to meet you almost everywhere along the H2H. In order to make this simpler to plan, on each stage page I have included directions as to how to get to the start, and away from the end, of the day's hike.

One last advantage: "guest" hikers provide additional logistical options... for example with maps. Since the whole H2H requires 48 maps, carrying them all (or even a significant percentage thereof) with you the whole way is impractical. If you have "guest" hikers, then you can arrange with some of them beforehand to bring along the next set of maps you'll require (as well as to take the used ones back with them when they leave).

Stages

• All times are rough estimates and assume that you are in good mountain hiking shape (see Preparation).
• Time does not include time spent on breaks -- the total time each day is probably at least an hour longer.
• If the weather is bad, either don't hike or plan on times being at least 20% longer (see Safety)
• Difficulty refers to the most challenging section of trail on that day, not to the overall difficulty of the stage.
• "medium" implies narrow rough mountain paths requiring sure-footedness and a head for heights.
• "hard" implies "medium" plus some stretches requiring upper body strength (see Klettersteige).

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