Tour de Fiz: Nights in mountain huts with children

Before you start reading this article, it is important to note the following points about hiking in mountain huts with children:

I wanted to write this article because when preparing our hiking project in mountain huts with children, I found very little complete and concrete information, in relation to the questions I was asking myself, mainly regarding the age of the children and their ability to walk.
This article contains the story of our family adventures in mountain huts with children; it is of course possible to do the tour in another way or to plan longer or shorter stages according to the children's wishes.
Enjoy the read, and above all, if you decide to hike a short section of this mountain trail, even if it's just for one night in a mountain refuge with your children, sharing our experience will have been beneficial 🙂

1: Are my children old enough to sleep in a mountain hut?

This was the first and most important question I asked myself about this medium-mountain hike and going to a mountain hut with children: Will the children keep up and, most importantly, will they enjoy it?

Our children are 8, 6.5, and 4.5 years old, respectively. We don't hike every weekend, but they are quite active and sporty, play outdoors a lot, cycle to school, do extracurricular sports activities, etc.

In spring, we had done a few 'outdoor' outings (see article on this subject), so I knew they had the physical capacity to walk for several hours (with breaks :), even if the motivation would be another story :)

In the end, we covered an elevation gain of 5200 m, 2600 m uphill and 2600 m downhill, with shorter and longer walking days, varying between 3 and 6 hours.

Tips: The hardest part is the first step; you won't regret it :)

2: Our itinerary: The Tour de Fiz in a mountain hut with children

Before describing our itinerary and the mountain huts with children in detail, I invite you to take a look at the Tour de Fiz map which greatly helped us in planning our trip.

Next, you should know that the announced times are for 'family pace' walking with children older than ours. We generally took between 1x and 2x longer, which allowed us to enjoy the lake, the view, a break, or a picnic.

Day 1:

Fardelay parking lot to the Fonts refuge: We leave the car in the parking lot for 5 days and embark with everyone for 5 nights in the mountains. Don't they say the first step is always the hardest? Well, here we are! And off we go. We reach the refuge in 2 hours (announced time 1h25). Link to the refuge

Day 2:

A lovely ascent that takes us from the Fonts refuge to the Alfred Wills refuge via Lake Anterne. We walk for 3 hours in the morning, a 1-hour break at noon, and then 2 hours in the afternoon to the refuge. Marmots are there, the sun, and the magnificent lake. Link to the refuge

Day 3:

We walk for 3 hours in the morning, a one-hour break at the Col d'Anterne (2257m) for a picnic and arrive at the Moede refuge in the early afternoon, which allows us to relax, play with the children, cards, draw, and fill in logbooks, facing Mont Blanc. Link to the refuge

Day 4:

A short day all downhill, 2h30 to the Chatelet refuge (announced time 1h40). We eat our picnic at the refuge, still facing Mont Blanc, the children are delighted to spend the afternoon playing together, but we make a small detour to Lac Vert. Link to the refuge

Day 5:

The big day, we climb from 1292m to 2032m, passing through Passy Plaine Joux (well known to paragliding enthusiasts), the ascent is quite steep, but we hold on and motivate the troops :) The Platé refuge awaits us in the middle of its stone desert. We arrive at the refuge around 3:30 pm, making it a good day's walk but still allowing a good break, with card games and aperitifs. Link to the refuge

Day 6:

Last day, all (long) downhill, after the Col de la Portette. We pass through the top of Dérochoir (a dangerous passage we had planned to take but which experienced hikers advised us against with children) to see for ourselves, and then descend to the Sales refuge, picnic, and return to the car. Total announced time 4h40, we took 6h.

In the refuge, meals are taken between 6:30 pm and 7:30 pm depending on the refuges, so we go to bed 'quite' early, to get up around 7 am-8 am. Being on half-board means we don't have to worry about catering, which is quite welcome :) The menu is set by the refuge (cheese fondue and mountain meals).

Tips: The refuges offer half-board and picnics, which means we don't have to carry food, except for small sweets and other cereal bars.

3: How to motivate children on a hike with overnight stays in a mountain hut

Probably the most anticipated paragraph of the entire article :) The first good news is that doing a tour of different mountain huts with children 'forces' us to walk to reach the overnight location. So no need to complain or dawdle, because in the end, there's no other solution than to keep moving forward. I want to reassure parents: the big advantage of this tour is having access to a road every day if needed (in case the planned tour needs to be shortened).

Before departure:

Before departure, we took the time to show the children the route, accommodations, etc., on the IGN map;
They each received a personalized backpack to carry their water bottle, comforter, flashlight, and logbook (the fun and light things)
We had also prepared a logbook for each, with a series of stickers, markers, etc., enough to start the logbook at home and get into the mood already

During the hike:

During the hike, we talked, sang, laughed, we tried to transform 'go!' into 'what do you think we'll eat tonight?'
Sometimes, we also promised a little drink as an aperitif (the €5 Orangina is well-deserved), so that was also a topic of conversation
Some refuges also have a nice ink stamp, don't forget to ask them for it, it's a nice souvenir to put in the logbook

After the hike:

After the hike, we had booked 3 nights in an equipped tent at Lac d'Aiguebelette, a reward that was well worth it, judging by the stars in the children's eyes: swimming pool, lake, pétanque, swing, and ice cream, what else?

Tips: Conversations with 4-6-8 year olds don't necessarily have to be highly philosophical. The main thing is to use your parental imagination: Did we talk about 'Rikki' at school? Well, Rikki has friends, Rikki goes on vacation. We make rhymes, each one word at a time: Bread-bath-full. We find words that start with the same letter/syllable: Notebook-Truck-Peanut- etc.. and we recycle them day after day. The main thing is to communicate and move forward without the child realizing it, as if we were guiding the child with words rather than by hand :)

4: In the children's backpack, during the hike

The children carry their own bags; it's part of the hike and their pride too. It also allows them to have their secret garden in the mountain huts with children. Here's what they carried:

Cap, sunglasses
Flashlight (a large part of the motivation at 6 years old lies in the flashlight)
Water bottle (like at school, after all)
Logbook, for writing and drawing, and a pen
Comforter (pocket size, we did well to leave the large dolphin toy in the car)
The day's small 10 am snacks

Tips: Each morning, the child prepares their small bag so as not to forget anything (with a check from mom and dad, right :)

5: 5 things to bring and 5 things to forget when hiking with overnight stays in a mountain hut with children

We took great care to prepare our bags following the advice given in this link from 'mountain huts for families'. Indeed, embarking on a hike in mountain huts with children is not something to be prepared for at the 'last minute'.

We, adults, carried all the necessities (spare clothes, rain gear, toiletries and first aid kit, flip-flops, sleeping bag liner, chargers, etc.).

Here's what helped us a lot:

Tupperware containers for picnics (which are sometimes cold salads) and which can then be transformed into a small, well-sealed trash can.
Laundry bags, one per child. This way, each evening, the child receives their bag to take out their pajamas and put in their next day's outfit.
Flip-flops for walking inside the refuges
A large garbage bag to put in the backpack, open, so that everything inside the bag is protected in case of heavy rain
A solar charger (because electricity is rationed)

What we could have easily forgotten:

Reducing the size of the toiletry bag... and really taking the bare minimum
Board games: the refuges all have games like UNO, Memo, etc... a single deck of cards would have been enough
Coloring and activity books: As the weather forecast was rainy, we had brought things to keep the children occupied, but in the end, the refuge itself is a place for games, and the logbook was amply sufficient for drawing and coloring
The k-way or the poncho, we had both, one would have been sufficient.
Only one towel, in the end, washing is often limited to a quick wash, so a small towel is sufficient

Tips: Weigh the bags before leaving, we had +/- 10kg each, probably with a little effort, they could have been lighter.

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