'We wanted to pass that love of walking on to our children' - my family hike on the Tour du Mont Blanc

The Alps aren’t just for skiing, says Fergal O’Keeffe, whose last trip before the pandemic was a family hike on the Tour du Mont Blanc

Hiking the epic Tour du Mont Blanc, which goes through the French, Italian and Swiss Alps

Fergal O'Keeffe

Little did I know when I began the mammoth task of planning a hiking trip on the Tour du Mont Blanc for our family of six that it would be our last trip abroad.

The Tour du Mont Blanc (TMB), a bucket-list hiking route since the 1760s, goes through the French, Italian and Swiss Alps, passing snow-capped peaks, glaciers, deep river valleys and wildflower-strewn meadows. The full route measures 170km and is usually trekked in 12 days. In July 2019, we planned to tackle 90km from Chamonix, France, to Courmayeur, Italy, on the same Alpine paths used by Roman soldiers over 2,000 years before.