Crowds at Mont Blanc: will hiking soon require reservations?

The Tour du Mont-Blanc is one of Europe’s most popular long-distance hiking routes, a 170-kilometre circuit through France, Italy and Switzerland that some 80,000 people walk each year, creating mounting problems. On particularly popular sections of Mont Blanc, hiking groups are now so close together that there is hardly any distance between them. At the same time, not all visitors show respect for nature. Local residents are complaining and consider the situation untenable. "Today we're moving along in single file. People can only see the backsides of those in front of them. That's hardly ideal," said the mayor of Saint-Gervais-les-Bains, Jean-Marc Peillex, speaking to Swiss public broadcaster SRF. He is calling for access to the route to be restricted from next spring and for this to be enforced through checks and sanctions. Saint-Gervais-les-Bains is on the French side of the Mont Blanc massif, in the Haute-Savoie department of the French Alps. The town is an important starting point for tours in this area. The French access route to the Tour du Mont Blanc (TMB) also runs through the region. In future, anyone doing the Tour du Mont Blanc will have to reserve a place in a hut or an authorised bivouac zone. A bivouac zone is an officially designated area where hikers or mountaineers are allowed to spend the night outdoors on a temporary basis or pitch their tent. Unlike in a hut, there is usually no infrastructure there, or only very basic facilities. "If that is not possible, you postpone your plans to the following year," suggests Peillex. Only a small part of the Tour du Mont Blanc runs through the municipality of Saint-Gervais. However, the other municipalities along the French section of the route are working together on the new rules and want to ensure that they come into force next spring. Switzerland opts for coordination Switzerland currently has no comparable plans to restrict access. Joachim Rausis, mayor of Orsières in the canton of Valais, also sees a need for action, but does not speak of pronounced overtourism. "There are warning signs, and we need to regulate things. But above all we need coordination between Switzerland, Italy and France," says Rausis. One thing is clear: the huge influx of visitors is also creating difficulties for mountain guides. "You have to reserve hotels and huts a year in advance. For someone self-employed, that is almost impossible," because as a self-employed mountain guide you rarely have clients who book a year ahead. The debate highlights a fundamental problem of mountain tourism: how can the international popularity of the Alps be reconciled with the protection of nature and the interests of local people? A reservation requirement could slow the flow of visitors, but at the same time it would call into question the traditional idea that the mountains are freely accessible to everyone. A mandatory reservation system would not be entirely new on Mont Blanc. On the French normal route to the summit, overnight stays in the Nid d’Aigle, Tête Rousse and Goûter huts already have to be booked via a special reservation system. The names of all participants must be provided, and the booking confirmation must be shown during checks. The Goûter and Tête Rousse huts were open for the 2026 season until recently, but have been temporarily closed since 11 August 2026 because of the risk of rockfall.