Just over 100 km, but with an accumulated altitude difference of 6300 m! We spent 8 days in July and August 2015 hiking the Haute Route, or a variation on it. From Chamonix we went over the mountains to Nendaz in the Rhone valley.
We arrived in Chamonix on a pleasant afternoon with a tent and warm clothing. We had explored all the most stunning day-hikes around Chamonix and Mont Blanc on a previous visit. So, our plan this time was to hike the Haute Route all the way to Zermatt, from Mont-Blanc to the Matterhorn. The famous Haute Route crosses major mountain chains directly west to east. The main route leads via rocks and glaciers, but even the “Walkers’ Haute Route” is quite ambitious. With 30 kg of luggage between the two of us, we would see how far we could get.
The first pass on the Haute Route: the Col de Balme
The hut on the Col de Balme at 2191 m marks the border between France and Switzerland. It looks like an ancient relic from the early days of Alpinism and the caretakers are possibly just as ancient and quite grumpy. Nevertheless, they serve us a cup of hot cocoa. Mind you, we are glad for it as we have been walking up here in constant rain and fog from Argentière near Chamonix (France).
The first day brought us to a fabulous campsite near Argentière on the end of the Chamonix valley. Luckily, the rainy second day was the only one with really bad weather. It brought us into the Valais region in Switzerland, which we later came to know much better. In fact, Valais is famous for being the region with the most sunshine in Switzerland!
Reaching up to the Window
On day 3, a wonderful sunny day, we tackled the Fenêtre d’Arpette, a 2665 m high rocky pass. The “window” is popular with day walkers and organised international tour groups on the Tour de Mont-Blanc circuit. Our backpacks were quite heavy, but the hiking and the landscape amazing. We set up our tent in between and it took us two days to reach Champex, the so-called “Little Canada of Switzerland”.
For the next pass, the Col de Mille, we took again two days, hiking from Liddes over the mountain range to Lourtier and Champsec. In between we found a beautiful campsite at 2100 m, overlooking the Val de Bagne valley and the resort town of Verbier on the opposite site.
Hiking off-route – away from the Haute Route and towards Nendaz
Finally, we decided to turn off the direct Zermatt route and take another pass towards the Rhone Valley. This meant that our last two days led us to Verbier and over the Croix de Coeur to Le Tzoumaz and Nendaz.
The village of Sarreyer halfway to Verbier we found actually far more charming than Verbier itself: cute renovated woodblock houses, and a similarly good location.
From Le Tzoumaz to Nendaz, we walked along a historic bisse. The bisses are water channels that the villagers took much effort to construct along the steep hillsides. Most of them dried out when new technologies made their difficult maintenance unnecessary. Meanwhile, however, local tourists boards have been restoring but the maintenance paths for hikers.
Practicalities of hiking the Haute Route
Not counting (sometimes unintended) detours, we have walked 102 km altogether, with 6300 m ascent and 5550 m decent.
As we had the tent and camping stove with us, we could hike at our own pace. Wild camping is officially forbidden in Switzerland. However, it is tolerated in most cases above the timber line and if you set up camp/bivouac only for one night.
We found that our backpacks were a bit to heavy for this kind of high-altitude hiking. Nevertheless, we tried again! The next time we attempted a similar “high road” was a few years later. This time we walked the Alta Via 1 in Italy, just south of the same mountains that the Haute Route follows. Having learned from hiking the Haute Route, we weighed all our gear and reduced it!
NB: We were not sponsored in any way for hiking the Haute Route. We arranged everything ourselves and paid all expenses.
Never miss a new post! Get notifications about new posts straight into your inbox!
Well done! What a wonderful trip – very envious of your energy, perseverance, determination etc., etc. Thanks for your sharing, as usual.
Beautiful, I would love to do a hike like this. Spanky not so much. Champex: “little Canada” – do you know why?
Nothing like hiking in the mountains when the weather is good…but nothing more miserable than when bad. We did the same in the Berner Oberland, using Lauterbrunnen as our base. Spectacular. The Alps so beautiful.
You guys pretty tough carrying those heavy backpacks!
Frank (bbqboy)
Thank you!
They say it’s because of the snow-covered forests and the general landscape…
So it’s apparently not about language, although to our surprise, we found that there were many English-speaking tourists in the French-speaking part of Valais (we had expected mostly French). The Germans, obviously, prefer the German-speaking Eastern part. Many locals speak all three languages anyway.