Where to Walk in July

July is when the high walks are actually open

July is the month several famous trips stop being “next month” and match the season on the route page. Fuji’s official climbing season starts. The Inca Trail and the Salkantay Trek are in their dry season. Kilimanjaro’s second dry season is underway. The northern GR20, the Tour du Mont Blanc and Alta Via 1 are all inside their hut windows. If one of those is the walk, July is an honest month, provided the hut or the permit was arranged earlier than feels reasonable.

July is a poor month for trips people set beside those names. The West Highland Way is open, and it is inside the midge peak. Nepal’s teahouse trails are in the monsoon their pages tell you to avoid. The floor of Makhtesh Ramon is the heat the desert page treats as a hazard. The month list is on Where to walk in July. The month before, when the Alpine huts are only just opening and Fuji is still shut, is Where to walk in June.

Walks that are honestly in season

Mount Fuji by the Yoshida Trail

Two days, about 15 km, about 1,471 m of ascent, graded hard. You start at the Fuji Subaru Line 5th Station, sleep in a hut near the eighth station, and go up for sunrise. The high point, Kengamine, is 3,776 m.

The official season is early July to early September, when the huts, buses and summit facilities are open. July is the opening, not a quiet preview. Since 2024 the trail has been gated at the 5th Station, with a climbing fee, a daily cap and an online reservation. The gate also shuts from mid-afternoon until the small hours, and a hut booking is the main exception. The fee and the cap change by season, so they are whatever the official climbing site says this year. Book the eighth-station hut. A night outside the huts is not a plan.

Mount Fuji by the Yoshida Trail

The classic Inca Trail

Four days, about 42 km, about 2,500 m of ascent, graded hard. The dry season is May to September. The trail closes for the whole of every February. July is the middle of the dry season, which is also when the permit is hardest to hold.

The permit is capped at 500 people a day in total, about 200 of them trekkers. Booking goes through a licensed operator. Walking it on your own is prohibited. Permits sell out four to six months ahead, and May to August dates go months before you travel. The permit is tied to the passport you will carry. Dead Woman’s Pass, the high point, is 4,215 m, so the days in Cusco beforehand are part of the trek. The page asks for at least two.

If this is July and you do not hold a permit, you are reading about the Inca Trail. The trek that reaches Machu Picchu without that lottery is the subject of Inca Trail or Salkantay.

The classic Inca Trail

The Salkantay Trek

Five days, about 74 km, about 3,200 m of ascent, graded hard. The dry season matches the Inca Trail: May to September. November to March is the rainy season the page ties to mud and landslides. July is on the dry side of that line.

The pass is about 4,630 m, higher than anything on the Inca Trail, beneath a summit of 6,271 m. There is no lottery and no daily cap on the trek itself. The Machu Picchu ticket is a separate timed booking. You can walk Salkantay without an operator, though most people do not, and Cusco still comes first: at least two days, because this pass is an altitude problem. July means the weather is with you. It does not lower the pass.

The Salkantay Trek

Kilimanjaro on the Machame Route

Six days, about 62 km, about 4,900 m of ascent, graded expert. The top is Uhuru Peak at 5,895 m. Dry seasons are January to March and June to October. The long rains to avoid are April and May. July sits inside the second dry season, not on the edge of it.

There is no technical climbing. The hard part is the air on summit night. Independent trekking is not allowed: the park requires a licensed operator, guides and porters. The page would rather you take six or seven days than five, because the extra time is what makes the summit more likely. This itinerary is the six-day version. October is still inside the same dry season, and it is the end of it: Where to walk in October.

Kilimanjaro, the Machame Route

The northern GR20

Six days, about 98 km, about 6,450 m of ascent, graded expert, from Calenzana to Vizzavona. The season is mid-June to September. Snow can block the passes into early summer, so July is the first month that warning no longer leads. July and August are also when refuge bunks need booking. The high point of the whole GR20, the Pointe des Eboulis at about 2,607 m, is on this northern half.

Do not switch to this because a Tour du Mont Blanc bed was gone. The grade is expert: granite ridges, chained rock, exposure, and thin resupply on the middle days. It is a serious week for someone who already scrambles. It is a bad consolation prize.

The GR20, Calenzana to Vizzavona

The Alpine hut tours, at their busiest

The Tour du Mont Blanc, on this itinerary, is seven days, about 170 km and about 10,000 m of ascent, graded hard, through France, Italy and Switzerland. Most walkers take 7 to 11 days in refuges, anti-clockwise from the Chamonix valley. There is no technical climbing. The days are long and the weather turns quickly. The season is mid-June to mid-September. July is the centre of it, so the refuge chain is the real itinerary. Book before you fly.

Alta Via 1 is six days, about 120 km and about 6,500 m, also hard: rifugios from Lago di Braies, under Civetta and Pelmo, toward Belluno. The season is late June to September, once the huts are open and the passes are clear of snow. July is not a shorter TMB. It is the other hard hut tour, in one country, with its own booking problem. The choice is Tour du Mont Blanc or Alta Via 1.

Tour du Mont Blanc and Alta Via 1.

Open, and still a poor week to choose it

The West Highland Way

Seven days, about 154 km, about 3,155 m of ascent, graded moderate, from Milngavie to Fort William. The season is May to September. Spring and autumn are the quiet months. Midges peak from June to August.

July is listed, and it is the middle of that peak. If the path is the point, May or September matches the word “quietest” on the same page. The two-day Roman alternative is West Highland Way or Hadrian’s Wall.

The West Highland Way

Two places July asks you to leave alone

Everest Base Camp, on the highlights itinerary, is eight days and about 110 km. Its seasons are March to May and late September to November. July is in neither. Annapurna Base Camp says to avoid the June to September monsoon, and its autumn window opens in October, not now. The spring you missed is Where to walk in March. The choice between the two camps, in a month when one of them is actually in season, is Everest or Annapurna base camp.

Makhtesh Ramon is about 18 km and 400 m over one or two days, graded moderate, and its season is October to April. Summer on the crater floor is dangerous enough that July and August are rim days, or a different country. The page wants at least 5 litres of water a person if you are there at all. The desert month is Where to walk in October.

Use July for a walk whose page names it: Fuji with a hut and a reservation, a Machu Picchu trek you have already secured, Kilimanjaro with an operator, or a Corsican or Alpine hut tour with the beds confirmed.