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Bivouac or huts in the Vanoise: what the trip really costs

On cash alone, bivouacking is cheaper: six nights of beds and meals come to 378.35 EUR at the huts against 89.45 EUR bivouacking and cooking for yourself, using the prices each hut published as of 27 August 2026. Once you add getting there, parking, the food you carry and the tent you have to buy, the whole trip costs 751.33 EUR in a dorm on half board against 636.68 EUR bivouacking and self catering: the comfort premium is 114.65 EUR, or 15.3 per cent of the trip, driving from the UK. And the middle position does not exist any more on this circuit, because two of the six huts no longer allow bivouac at all, so a bivouac walker pays for two hut nights whatever they do.

Last checked: 27 August 2026. Hut tariffs are set season by season and the retrieval date is part of every figure below.

The circuit costed here

The Parc national de la Vanoise publishes the Tour des Glaciers de la Vanoise on its own Explore la Vanoise platform as a loop of 4 to 7 days from Les Fontanettes at Pralognan-la-Vanoise: 82.2 km and 5,201 m of ascent. This page costs the full version, seven days and six nights, which is the one the park lays out stage by stage.

Stage 3 ends where four huts sit within twenty minutes of each other, so Plan Sec stands in for the sector and Fond d'Aussois, Dent Parrachée and La Fournache are the alternatives. Walkers who extend the loop north and east onto the GR55 pick up Refuge des Barmettes, Refuge d'Entre Deux Eaux, Refuge du Plan du Lac, Refuge de la Femma and Refuge de la Leisse instead. Those are not stages of the tour as the park publishes it, so they are not in the totals.

The method here is a 2024 spreadsheet from a real trip on the same loop, entered from Maurienne rather than Tarentaise. Five of its six hut nights are stages of the standard circuit. The prices have been replaced with the current season's; the structure of the comparison has not.

What each stop charges now

Per person, in euro, as published on the retrieval date. Where a hut does not publish a line item, it says so rather than carrying a guess.

Two figures move the whole comparison. The bivouac fee is 6.00 at every hut that still takes bivouackers, and it has not moved in two seasons. The dormitory night ranges from 22.00 to 30.80.

The two huts that changed the answer

Refuge du Col de la Vanoise states plainly that bivouac has been withdrawn: given the volume of visitors and what that does to the hut's waste-water system, it is no longer allowed there. Refuge de Péclet-Polset says bivouac is not possible near the hut and points walkers to the alpage de Ritord, an hour away toward Pralognan.

Those are nights 1 and 5 of a six-night loop. A walker carrying a tent still buys a bed on both, and still buys it at the full published rate, because neither hut sells a bivouac option any more. That is the single largest reason the cash gap has narrowed since 2024: two of the six bivouac fees have become two of the most expensive dormitory nights on the circuit.

The park's own rule is the other half of it. In the core of the Vanoise, bivouac is allowed in summer only in the immediate vicinity of certain huts, on that hut's designated area, between 19h and 8h, with a reservation made with the guardian, and places per hut are capped. Pitching anywhere else, with or without a tent, is prohibited and carries a fine. Bivouac in the Vanoise is a hut service, not an alternative to huts.

Six nights, beds and meals only

Totals per person for the six nights, in euro, using the prices above. The bivouac rows already include the two forced hut nights.

Two of those rows need a note. At Refuge de l'Orgère and Refuge de Péclet-Polset dinner is not sold as a separate line, so the "dinner at the hut" rows buy half board at those two stops and get a breakfast they did not ask for. That is what the published tariffs allow you to buy, so that is what is costed.

Fixed costs, and the point of the exercise

Beds and dinners are the part of a trip that people compare, because they are the part with a price list. They are not the part that decides what the trip costs. Below is the rest of it, per person, with two people sharing a car.

Worked example A, fly and hire a car. Return flight from London to Geneva booked well ahead, 140.00. Small hire car for eight days, 320.00 shared two ways, 160.00. Fuel Geneva to Pralognan and back, 400 km at 7 l/100 km at 1.85 per litre, 51.80 shared, 25.90. Motorway tolls 30.00 shared, 15.00. Parking at Les Fontanettes, 44.00 for six consecutive days plus 10.00 for the seventh, 54.00 shared, 27.00. Fixed total 367.90.

Worked example B, drive from the UK. Eurotunnel return for the car, 220.00 shared two ways, 110.00. Fuel for 2,100 km at 7 l/100 km at 1.85 per litre, 271.95 shared, 135.97. French tolls 130.00 shared, 65.00. The same parking, 27.00. Fixed total 337.98.

The airfare and the hire-car rate are planning figures for a summer booking made in good time, not retrieved prices. Everything else is arithmetic on published rates: the parking tariff is the Pralognan one for 2026, and note that the village car park at Le Bouquetin charges nothing and shuttle buses run up to Les Fontanettes and Les Prioux at no charge between 27 June and 30 August, which would remove that 27.00 line entirely. The mairie also sells a season pass, but it requires proof of local address, so a visiting walker cannot buy it.

Excluded from both, deliberately: any valley night before or after the loop, travel insurance and rescue cover, boots and waterproofs that both styles need anyway, and food and drink bought in the valley. Excluding the valley nights works against the argument this page is making, which is why they are excluded.

Gear, charged to the bivouac side only. Tent 300.00, sleeping mat 80.00, sleeping bag less the liner a hut walker buys anyway 200.00, stove and pot 60.00, and the extra rucksack capacity over a 35 litre pack 60.00. That is 700.00 of kit, divided over ten trips, one a season for ten seasons, which is a generous lifespan and therefore a conservative charge: 70.00 a trip, plus 8.00 of gas bought locally. 78.00 per trip. Only the difference caused by choosing to bivouac is charged, not the whole kit list.

Food carried. Carried over from the 2024 sheet's own method, 18.75 a day self catering, 7.50 with dinner at the hut, 5.00 on half board, 2.50 on full board, across seven walking days.

The totals

Total trip cost by style, driving from the UK, broken into travel and parking, hut charges, food carried, and amortised camping gear
Total trip cost by style, driving from the UK, broken into travel and parking, hut charges, food carried, and amortised camping gear

Driving from the UK, per person, in euro: bivouac self catered 636.68, bivouac with dinner 730.83, bivouac half board 760.33, bivouac all meals 815.93, dormitory with dinner 723.83, dormitory half board 751.33, dormitory all meals 806.93.

Flying to Geneva and hiring a car adds 29.92 per person to every row: bivouac self catered 666.60, dormitory half board 781.25.

The cheapest style against the comfortable style, for both travel cases, with the comfort premium marked
The cheapest style against the comfortable style, for both travel cases, with the comfort premium marked

The comfort premium. Take the cheapest way to walk the loop, bivouac and self catering, and the ordinary way, a dormitory bed and half board. The difference is 114.65 EUR either way, because it is entirely on the mountain and the travel cancels out. As a share of the whole trip that is 14.7 per cent flying and hiring a car, 15.3 per cent driving. Put another way, between 45 and 55 per cent of the trip is spent before you reach the trailhead, depending on style, and the choice everyone agonises over moves about a seventh of it.

And the like-for-like comparison inverts. If you carry the tent and still eat at the huts, half board and all, the trip costs 760.33 driving against 751.33 in a dormitory. Bivouacking is 9.00 EUR more expensive. Two forced hut nights and 78.00 of amortised gear are enough to wipe out four bivouac fees of 6.00. That is the honest result and it does not flatter either side of the argument.

In sterling, at 0.856 to the euro on 26 August 2026: driving from the UK, 545.00 GBP bivouacking and self catering, 643.14 GBP in a dormitory on half board.

What you carry, and how hard it feels

Pack weight in kilograms and a one-to-ten difficulty rating for each style, labelled as illustrative ratings rather than measurements
Pack weight in kilograms and a one-to-ten difficulty rating for each style, labelled as illustrative ratings rather than measurements

Pack weight, kilograms leaving the trailhead: bivouac self catered 21, bivouac with dinner 12, bivouac half board 11, bivouac all meals 10, dormitory with dinner 10, dormitory half board 9, dormitory all meals 8. Difficulty on a one to ten scale, in the same order: 10, 6, 5, 5, 3, 3, 1.

Read that chart carefully, because it is the weakest data on this page. See the caveats below.

Caveats

The part that is actually hard

None of the above is the difficult bit of planning this loop. The difficult bit is that six nights have to be six consecutive nights, at six specific huts, all of which fill on the same August weekends, and each of which is booked through its own portal. Move one night and the chain has to be rebuilt around it.

That is the problem HutScanner is built for. The Vanoise region page has the network of huts and the walking times between them, and each hut page carries its own contact and booking route. Availability tracking across the chain is what the app is being built toward: check the huts, find the nights that line up, then book each hut on its own site.

Every price on this page is the hut's, not ours. Book directly with the hut, using the links above.

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