The Haute Route

Read around our web site a bit and you’ll find that we’ve been coming to Argentiere since 1986. That first trip was a bit of an adventure. The Chamonix Valley was just somewhere that I’d heard of and sounded like it was a place to go. Free camping on Snell’s Field, a climbing guidebook, plenty of the blissful abandon of youth and a wealth of experience of Alpine climbing – all gained from tales of daring do in the bar back home. (I’ve chosen to ignore the fleeting visit as a 5 year old, passing through at Easter 1973 on our way to Pisa in a Ford Cortina. All I can really remember is a snowball fight outside the entrance to the Mont Blanc tunnel and a chicken running round a farm yard somewhere in rural France just after having it’s head chopped off.)

The Chardonnet Glacier and the first col to cross.

That trip was many things and, bits of it at least, I remember well. The photo we use for the StayInChamonix banner photo was taken on the trip during a foray into the Vallee Blanche. A bivi in the ruin of the old Cosmique Refuge and an ascent of the North Face of the Tour Ronde followed that shot.

Revisiting the North Face of the Tour Ronde 25 years after I climbed it.

One of the things it did do was open my eyes to the wider world of mountains. I heard about the Haute Route, the high level ski traverse from Chamonix to Zermatt. At the time, skiing was prohibitively costly, and not something that proper mountaineers - like what I was, would entertain. But still, it sounded like a bit of a journey, and from that point on, the idea of doing it was logged.

Dawn on the Chardonnet Glacier, looking back to the top of the Grand Montets above Argentiere.

I do think that it’s important to have goals to work to. Some take longer than others to achieve, but nonetheless, so long as you keep moving in the right direction… It’s now 2011, some 25 years on, and finally I’ve done it! I’m not long back from a traverse of the Classic Haute Route.

The hardest part was probably parting with the cash required to buy into ski touring. Just when you think you've bought all the Alpine ski gear, you find out that you need a complete set of other gear to even think about ski touring. And it’s even more expensive! And then you find out that ski touring is mostly about going uphill, and you feel a bit cheated to find that you had to buy new skis at all!

How hard can it be? Starting off your ski touring career with the Haute Route did seem like a bit of a silly idea to some. But if you can ski, you can walk up hill for a long time, and you like being really dirty for days on end, then surely you’ve got what it takes?

Classic touring on the Haute Route heading towards the Valsorey Hut

It was a great trip – fairly full on from start to finish. Straight off the plane, up to the Argentiere Hut, and into the route itself. A bit of acclimatisation would have helped, but so would a clean bill of health – the one without the hacking cough to start off with. The weather was fairly kind to us, as was the snow (despite the relatively lean season) and we made it to Zermatt in 6 days. Days off don’t come into it when you’re on a boys trip (even if there’s at least a token girlie on it) and so day 7 was up the Breithorn and day 8 was a plod to Col Freshfield in the Vallee Blanche.

Nearly there. The Matterhorn on the final afternoon above Zermatt.

Tick! Haute Route done. And boy did I sleep when I got home!

See the Haute Route Photo Gallery on our StayInChamonix web site.