Crossing the Great St Bernard Pass on the Via Francigena

The Great St Bernard Pass is where the Via Francigena crosses the Alps: the highest point of the route, the border between Switzerland and Italy, and the one place on the whole walk from Canterbury to Rome where the calendar decides whether you can pass. This guide sets out the stages either side of the pass from the stage data, and takes the seasonal facts — when the road opens, what happens when it is closed, how the bus and the tunnel work — from the hospice, the local tourist office, the tunnel operator and the Confraternity of Pilgrims to Rome, all of whose pages are listed under sources. The culture page tells the hospice's thousand-year story; this page is about getting over.

The stages either side

Martigny to Aosta is five days and 88 km: three up, two down. The climbing is 2,729 m over the three Swiss days, from the Rhône valley at Martigny to 2,469 m; the descent is 2,113 m over the two Italian days to Aosta. Both Martigny and Aosta have rail access in the data, which is why this five-day crossing is the standard Alpine trip.

Stage 38, Martigny to Orsières. The route leaves the Rhône and turns up the Dranse valley: 785 m of ascent, a "steady uphill gradient throughout the day". Fourth-steepest stage on the route. Abundant water, full shade.

Stage 39, Orsières to Bourg-Saint-Pierre. Only 14 km, but 921 m up — the steepest stage of the whole Via Francigena at 66 m per kilometre. Warnings: mountain weather can change rapidly, limited services between villages. Bourg-Saint-Pierre is the last village before the pass, and the Confraternity's guide describes it as having hotels and bars.

Stage 40, Bourg-Saint-Pierre to the pass. 16 km, 1,023 m of ascent, six and a half hours, graded hard. It is the only stage on the route marked scarce water and no shade, and the warnings are the most serious in the data: snow and ice possible even in summer, extreme weather changes with little warning, no shelter between Bourg-Saint-Pierre and the hospice, carry warm clothing, rain gear and extra food and water. The stage page's altitude for the pass is 2,469 m; the hospice gives its own as 2,472 m.

Stage 41, the pass to Etroubles. The biggest descent on the route, 1,271 m, "steep and rocky in places", with trekking poles strongly recommended. Etroubles is the first Italian village.

Stage 42, Etroubles to Aosta. A further 842 m down, graded easy, into the Roman city with its arch and theatre.

The hospice

The Hospice du Grand-Saint-Bernard was founded in 1050 by Bernard de Montjoux, Archdeacon of Aosta, and is still run by the Congregation of the Canons of the Great St Bernard. Its own page says it "offers accommodation and communal meals all year round" and describes itself as "a welcoming place at 2,472 metres, open all year round". Bookings are made through the hospice website; a summer-only auberge operates alongside. This site's accommodation guide lists it among the convents and religious houses that take in pilgrims, and the culture page notes that it offers beds and communal meals to credential holders — bring the credential.

When the pass is open

The hospice is open all year; the road is not. Three sources say the same thing in slightly different words:

• The hospice: "The access road to the Great St Bernard Pass is open, depending on snow conditions, from early June to mid-October, i.e. during the summer season. In winter, the Hospice is only accessible on cross-country skis or snowshoes."
• The Pays du Saint-Bernard tourist office: access by road is closed during the winter season; reaching the hospice then means back-country skis or snowshoes, and it advises hiring a guide because the route is unsecured.
• The Confraternity: the pass is normally free of snow from late May to late September, but snow can fall at night even in July and August; its member's crossing guide describes the road as closed from roughly late September to early June, the dates varying each year, and notes that once the road is officially open it is cleared daily.

The stage data is more conservative than any of them: it lists July to September as the best months for stage 40 and gives an approximate open window of 20 June to 15 September. Reconcile them like this — plan to cross between mid-June and mid-September; early June and October are possible in a good year and should be confirmed with the hospice, whose website carries a weather page, before you leave Martigny. The Confraternity's point is worth repeating: the pass is never "closed" in the sense of forbidden, but outside the road season it is a winter mountain route, not a walk.

The footpath, the road and the tunnel

The Confraternity's guide describes three ways over for a walker. The waymarked footpath — yellow-and-black lozenges, narrow in places, passing an emergency refuge — is the default and the one the stage page follows. The old tarmac road over the pass, quiet once the tunnel takes the traffic, is the fallback in poor visibility once you are past the tunnel entrance at Bourg-Saint-Bernard. And the road tunnel, which the walker uses only in a vehicle.

Two practical points from that guide. From Bourg-Saint-Pierre the footpath runs up the far side of the reservoir from the road, and you cannot walk the road's galleries between Bourg-Saint-Pierre and the tunnel entrance, so the choice between path and road is made at Bourg-Saint-Bernard, not in the village. And the tunnel cannot be walked or cycled through — the site's own pass page says the same, "the road tunnel is not for walkers".

The tunnel itself, from its operator's page: it runs from Bourg-Saint-Pierre in the Valais to Saint-Rhémy-en-Bosses in the Aosta Valley, was inaugurated on 19 March 1964 as the first road tunnel through the Alps, and has customs and toll stations at each portal.

The bus alternative

When the road is closed, or the weather is bad, or you simply do not want the climb, the way over is under. The hospice's page notes a TMR bus service between Martigny and Bourg-Saint-Bernard, the square at the Swiss tunnel entrance. The Pays du Saint-Bernard tourist office says the region's public transport "will take you in summer to the Grand-St-Bernard pass", describes the rail-and-bus approach — train to Martigny, train to Orsières with a change at Sembrancher, then bus — and sells tickets for Martigny–Aosta at its offices. The Confraternity's guide describes the Swiss bus continuing through the tunnel to Aosta with stops in Italy, and warns that it does not run every day of the week in winter.

So the sequence for a closed pass is: walk or ride to Orsières or Bourg-Saint-Pierre, take the bus through the tunnel, and resume at Etroubles or Aosta. You lose stage 40 and the top of stage 41. Check the current timetable with the tourist office or on the Swiss public-transport planner it points to; we have not reproduced times here because they change by season.

What to carry

From the stage page's own warnings, plus the two things the external pages add:

• Warm layers, hat and gloves, and a proper waterproof — the stage warns of snow and ice even in summer and extreme weather changes with little warning; the Confraternity's author records a snow shower at the pass in July.
• Extra food and water — stage 40 is marked scarce water and no shade, and the site's pass page says there is nothing to refill at between Bourg-Saint-Pierre and the hospice.
• Trekking poles — for the 1,271 m descent to Etroubles the next day, which the stage page strongly recommends them for.
• Identity documents — the stage list flags the border, and the tunnel portals have customs posts.
• A charged phone — the culture page gives 112 as the emergency number on both sides; the data flags no shelter on the climb.
• The credential — for the hospice, and for the stamp the culture page calls the most storied on the route.

If you are crossing in the shoulder weeks and the path is snow-covered but the road not yet open, the Confraternity's guide mentions snowshoes for hire from a sports shop in Orsières. That is a decision for people with winter experience; for everyone else, the bus.

Fitting the crossing into a longer walk

The five days from Martigny to Aosta sit inside two longer trips. From Lausanne, stages 34–42 give nine days along Lake Geneva and up the Rhône before the climb. Continuing to Ivrea, stages 34–46, is thirteen days and ends where the Alps meet the plain. For the whole-route walker, the pass is the timing constraint that fixes everything else — see best time to walk — and for the section walker it is the reason to book July or August. Either way, the two days above Orsières are the steepest on the route, and the hardest-stages ranking has them first and second.