October — It is possible to hike the route in early October but some of the accommodation options close at the end of September. Travel Information Getting to Chamonix, the starting point for the hike is simple. A transfer to Chamonix takes around 1 hour 45 minutes depending on traffic. Alternatively, you could travel to Chambery Airport.
Haute Route Tour with a Guide There are many different tour guides to choose from when it comes to hiking this route. Hiking the Haute Route Without a Guide The trail is well sign-posted throughout, making it possible to attempt the route independently. Accommodation for the Haute Route Trail You will find strategically placed accommodation options along the trail.
Mountain huts — These traditional huts may be basic, but they are a great place to meet other hikers and participate in the spirit of the trail. Hotels — For those looking for a little extra comfort, there are hotels of all price ranges to choose from. Day 7: Cabane Prafleuri — Arolla Cross two mountain passes among some of the highest peaks in the Alps before descending into Arolla. Day 8: Arolla — La Sage This stage is a more relaxing part of the trek as it passes the wonderful blue lake, small traditional villages and wooded sections.
Day Cabane de Moiry — Zinal Travel through alpine meadows above blue waters before making the steep descent into Zinal. Day Zinal — Gruben Reach the hamlet of Gruben through forests and alpine meadows.
Day Gruben — Europahutte After climbing up to the rocky Augstbordpass, make your way to Europa hut for the night. Day Europahutte — Zermatt Follow a high mountain path for excellent views of the Matterhorn. The walkers' "Haute Route" is a classic trek connecting Europe's highest mountain, Mont Blanc, with that most iconic of peaks, the Matterhorn. It is often described as one of the best long distance hikes in Europe, if not the world, and offers a truly immersive way to experience the Swiss Alps.
Physically speaking, it is also no small feat - it takes at least 10 days to complete the 12, metres of ascent and 10, metres of descent spread over the km-hike through the south-west corner of Switzerland.
It goes without saying that there is some amazing mountain scenery on display over the course of La Haute Route - immense peaks, ancient glaciers, turquoise lakes, epic views and, of course, two of Europe's best-known summits.
It is also a suitable trek for hikers of varying experience levels and abilities. While the trail is often quite exposed and there are a couple of sections that may intimidate a novice hiker or anyone uncomfortable with heights , the route is not technically demanding and can be broken up into manageable stages with the option of a number of short-cuts.
At the same time, if tackled in less time and including the more strenuous sections, La Haute Route is a physically demanding trek in fact, one of the most demanding I have been on. So what are the negatives?
Only one, really - Switzerland is expensive. And when I say expensive, I mean it can be eye-wateringly so. But if you choose to camp as I did and buy most of your provisions at supermarkets en route then you can keep expenses to a minimum. A bus from Geneva to Chamonix is fairly inexpensive and only takes around 1. You can hike in either direction but I would strongly recommend starting off in Chamonix: the scenery in the two stages closest to Chamonix is not overwhelming whereas the path toward Zermatt is far more impressive.
After over a week of hiking, the Matterhorn makes for a captivating finale, especially viewed from the Europaweg. However, bad weather forced us to reroute after spending the night at Cabane du Mont Fort. We camped nearly every night on the Haute Route, but we made exceptions on three occasions. Two of these exceptions were to stay at mountain huts the other was to stay in a cozy Airbnb on our rest day. We reserved beds ahead of time at Cabane du Mont Fort and Cabane du Moiry, due to the difficulty of camping on these stages and the rave reviews about these huts.
If you can, we recommend staying in at least one good mountain hut known as cabanes along your hike. We paid half as much with this option, while still enjoying all the ambiance and coziness of the hut. Tip 2: Get there early. Some rooms at Mont Fort only have two or four beds. Services: Toilets TP and soap , drinking water, public wifi access, a la carte food and drinks available for purchase, hot showers 5 CHF for 5 minutes , kitchenette with stove, sink, and cookware, and a classic, cozy hut with great views.
If you need to detour to Arolla due to bad weather or hazardous conditions, this is a great option. There are no other shops or services available along the trail until Arolla with the exception of a few mountain huts which serve meals. Looking out from Cabane du Mont Fort.
First, this would set you up for two very long and challenging days of walking in potentially hazardous conditions. Cabane des Dix is a further walk from Cabane du Mont Fort. Unfortunately, this section of the Haute Route does not have any options for camping. Here, the trail stays in the high mountains and does not encounter any towns, and thus does not encounter any campsites.
Services: Toilets, sinks NO drinking water , showers, restaurant, outlets. Camping Availability: Camping Arolla. After a couple of days of crossing rocky, barren, snow-covered high mountain landscapes, the sunny, green valley and the village of Arolla are bound to look very inviting. Camping Arolla is a nice, large campground with decent facilities and grassy terraces for tents. Tip: there are only a couple of showers for a whole bunch of campers, so try to get in there early if you want to avoid a long wait.
Nearby: The campground reception has a small shop and there is a pizza restaurant in the hotel next door to camping Arolla. Price: 8. A lovely evening at Camping Arolla. Camping Molignon is a big, busy campground on the edge of town. Services: Toilets TP and hand soap , several covered sinks for washing up, potable water hot and cold , showers, outlets, restaurant, small shop selling snacks and essential items, pool, hot tub, ping pong, playground, recycling, and trash bag purchase required.
Price: 7. Not a bad place to pitch a tent at Camping Molignon. We opted to spend the night at Moiry instead of camping and found it to be a worthwhile splurge. The mountain hut is situated remarkably close to a truly stunning glacier, and the modern renovations glass-walled dining room and spacious terrace make for an atmospheric and wonderful space in which to study the glacier and soak up the views.
However, by taking a variant to Grimentz, you have the option to camp instead, if you prefer. Additionally, if you want to stay on the Moiry variant of the trail but still want to camp, we did see many people wild camping in the area between the upper reservoirs and Lac de Moiry.
Nearby: There is a drinking water fountain located about an hour down the trail past Cabane de Moiry. There are also bathrooms at the parking lot next to Lac de Moiry.
Price: The terrace at Cabane de Moiry gets you up close and personal to the incredible Moiry Glacier. If you would prefer to legally camp on this stage, your best bet is to continue hiking past the Barrage de Moiry and onwards for about two more hours to the town of Grimentz. Alternatively, if you still wanted to complete the typical stage ten segment, you could take the bus back to Barrage de Moiry the next day and the complete the hike to Zinal.
Another option which would also cut out stage ten would be to hike directly from Grimentz to Zinal about 2. Nearby: Bus stop, tourist office, restaurants, bank, post office, shops. Camping Availability: Camping Relais de la Tzoucdana. At first glance, the campground is a little strange; there are various animals housed on site, people recreating everywhere you turn, and the area for tents is a bit cramped. However, it grew on us as we spent more time there. The showers are hot and clean, the staff is super friendly, the pitches are flat and grassy.
Tip: There are two options for your descent from the gondola station into Zinal. If you choose the less steep variant which follows a gravel road , the trail ends immediately next to the campground. The reception is located at the restaurant. Nearby: Grocery store, shops, ATM, bakery, restaurants, bus stop, gondola station, tourist office, post office. The typical route for this stage brings hikers into the lovely, quiet Turtmanntal Valley and to the little hamlet of Gruben.
Gruben is a quaint town situated along the river. However, for what it provides in rural, small-town charm, it lacks in camping options. If you want to camp along this stage, your only option is to camp wild. If you choose to do this, keep in mind that it is not technically legal, and you should therefore make every effort to minimize your impact.
Upon arriving in Gruben, most campers continue uphill past the Hotel Schwarzhorn , following the trail towards the next stage. If you continue up past Gruben, you can scout for potential camping spots tucked within the trees. There are few flat spots, but they do exist. Once you find a workable spot, you can head back into Gruben, grab a beer at the hotel, fill up on drinking water at the tap in front of the church, and wait for the sun to set before setting up camp.
In the morning, make sure to get packed up early. Tip: We chose to cook and eat our dinner on a bench next to the water tap. This allowed us to minimize our impact at our campsite and gave us easy access to water for cooking and washing up. Services: Drinking water is available in town in front of the church. If you purchase something at the hotel and ask for the password, you can get wifi access there.
The guide provides multiple variations for most sections, which allows you to change routes if needed for weather or fitness reasons. We found the guide to be pretty accurate and a good companion.
The only time we really wished we had a map was after we found our way blocked by deep snow and had to figure out an alternative route. Not only can you use it on your cell, as there is often great cell coverage on the trail, but you can also print out the maps!
A Swiss friend of ours was kind enough to enlighten us on the matter towards the end of the hike. You should not go hungry on this trail! There are so many restaurants, grocery stories and huts along the way that it would be a challenge to starve out there. It just depends how much you are willing to spend. For our hike, we decided we would purchase 4 days worth of food to start with and then wing it from there. We mainly did this because we were not sure about the prices of food along the trail and wanted to make sure that we at least had several days of low-cost meals.
I think our plan worked out pretty well and saved us some money. When buying food, I would recommend shopping at Migros there is one in the Geneva Airport or Co-op as they are both low-cost grocery stores that carry some very cheap house brands of food and beer. We were able to stretch our food out by purchasing dinners making big sandwiches at the grocery stores along the way, in addition to anything else we might need.
Meats, cheeses, wine and bread were all very cheap at the grocery stores. There is plenty of water along the trail and in each town there is at least one fountain that provides potable water. There is no need to carry lots of water. It took a bit of effort to figure out the logistics of getting to and from the trail, mainly because we needed to find an economical way to store our other gear while we hiked. Since we were flying in and out of Geneva Airport we decided to stay our first and last nights at a hotel near Geneva that offered free luggage storage and free airport shuttle service.
It ended up being less than half the price it would have been if we just stored our gear at the Geneva airport or train station.
From the airport you have plenty of low-cost options for getting to Chamonix. Easy peasy. We planned to hike the trail in 10 nights, with an additional buffer day if needed, but it ended up only taking us 9. There are many variations of the trail and many cable cars, buses, and shortcuts to use if needed. We mostly succeeded… unfortunately, we hit some very deep steep snow above the Cabane du Mont Fort which prevented us from going over the Col de la Chaux. Our first route choice around the pass via the Sentier de Chamoix was closed due to snow and the direct route over the pass was just too dangerous for us to attempt with the gear we had.
After looking at the map in the Cabane we thought we found an alternate route, but after going over two other passes we found the only way down was a steep icy ft glissade sliding down on your butt. Luckily, Chelsea was there to talk me out of it…So, we were forced to retreat and head down into some unknown to us, the mapless valley that looked like it had a good amount of civilization.
This detour forced us to miss two of the arguably best days of the trail, and replace them with the new Chelsea and Joseph Misery March. Day 1: Chamonix to Trient — A great first day on the trail. We left the campground in Chamonix around 9 am, grabbed a cup of coffee and croissant and hit the trail. The first half of the day is a nice walk down the valley to Argentiere and then up and over the pass that takes you into Switzerland.
There is a solid ascent out of the valley and some people decided to take a cable car up, but the trail is easy and the climb is a great way to get your legs ready for the days to come. We walked all over Trient but could not find a grocery store. Day 2: Trient to near La Garde — This was a surprisingly rough day for us. The day started off with a stiff climb out of Trient, but rewarded with beautiful views of the Trient Glacier and plenty of wildflowers.
The trail down is pretty steep and it was covered in icy, slushy snow. I managed to slip and fall in the snow on three separate occasions and Chelsea twice. After leaving the snow, we were faced with some difficulty going over a large boulder field and terrible trail conditions. We have hiked on many trails of all types, but have never experienced such slippage underfoot. The trail was covered in marble sized rocks that were ridiculously dangerous.
I managed to fall three more times and Chelsea twice. Every step was nerve-wracking and the falling was sapping our energy. It is not a fun experience to be carrying a 25lb pack and fall on a rocky trail, it is dangerous and it hurts!
After a demoralizing long descent we finally made it to the picturesque, lakeside town of Champex where we grabbed a bite to eat and rested a bit.
After a couple of hours recuperating we decided to just keep walking until we found a good campsite. We were able to find a secluded spot between La Garde and Sembrancher. We stopped in Clamblin to have a Coupe Denmark like a chocolate sunday and then made our way up past the large ski-resort town of Verbier, where we watched paragliders take off and fly though the valleys — pretty awesome!
As we made our way to the Cabane du Mont Fort, we could see pretty quickly that the way up the Col de la Chaux may not be possible for us.
This is one part of the hike that there very few reroute options. You need to go over Col de la Chaux or around it via the Sentier des Chamoix, in order to link the trail otherwise you must go back down into one of the valleys and make your way around. After looking at the situation, we decided to go into the Cabane and speak with the warden about the conditions.
The more troublesome part for us though, was that on the other side the snow continued very steeply down the pass and then stretched for miles to the next cabane. After waking up and setting out to take a look at some alternate routes around the snow we found ourselves stumped.
When went over two mountain passes only to find the only way down guarded by very steep icy snow. Left with no real alternate options we decided it would just be best to head down into the valley and find another way to get back on the trail. Unfortunately, that bus stop was in Sion — a 6 hour road walk away.
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