February 17, 2024

Hike to Montriond & Pointe de la Sambuy through Banc de la Linguale

Last summer, I went on a hike to Montriond and Pointe de la Sambuy. I had already been a few times to La Sambuy but this time, I didn’t take the chairlift on the way up. Instead, I started from Station de la Sambuy and passed through Chalets de l’Aulp de Seythenex and Banc de la Linguale.

Here is a map of the path I walked:

In the morning, I boarded a Car Région bus (line Y51) to Lathuile and waited for the summer shuttle to Station de la Sambuy. At the resort, I started walking up towards Chalets de l’Aulp de Seythenex, but before I reached it, I took a fork towards Montriond, a minor summit. There is no marked path and the trail is faint but it follows the narrow ridge so it was hard to stray. There was a good view from the summit. I then went down Montriond and continued on the way up until the Chalets.

From there, I walked off-trail through the pasture to get to the start of the path through Banc de la Linguale: It is a passage to Col de la Sambuy that is mostly grass and separated from the pasture by a cliff, although there are a few passages to get through. Once on the Banc, I had to cross a few screes with loose rocks in order to finally reach grass. There was no visible path on the way up to Col de la Sambuy and it was quite steep. After a while, I arrived at the Col.

In the morning, I thought I would go back down directly. However, there was still some time until the chairlift closed for the day, and since it would stopped operating after that summer, in the end, I decided to go up to Pointe de la Sambuy one last time. The path to the summit was steep but there was a great view at the top. Mont Blanc and Lake Annecy could be seen. On the way down, I made a detour to Petite Sambuy then walked down to the chairlift station. At the lower station, I waited for the shuttle to Faverges.