The Haute Route is the French name given to a route first completed by members of the Alpine Club in 1861 as a walking route and originally called by them the High Level Road. It works its way from Chamonix in France to Zermatt in Switzerland crossing many high Alpine passes and glaciers. There are in fact many variations on the original route both summer walking and winter/spring ski-touring. Our intention was to use the La Fouly variation to avoid the use of a bus or taxi ride which is now customary on the other routes. However the weather conditions were against us. Our departure on the trip was delayed for three days because of fresh snowfall and in the end the snow conditions dictated that we change our plans to try for one of the other variations. Even so we still encountered difficult snow conditions along the way and our group was breaking trail and making fresh tracks for most of the route. From the Hut books along the way we guessed that we were probably the third party to be completing the entire route in 1999 (excluding any parties of course which had done the traverse in winter before the Huts reopened). In compensation for our change of planned route we did manage to extend our trip on to Saas Fee and we also reached the summits of the Rosa Blanche and the Breithorn.
The five members of the team on the trip, (Alan, Jane, Mike, Neville and Ken), were all from the Cambridge Climbing and Caving Club, a BMC affiliated club. Four of us were also members of the Alpine Club, Alan and Ken being full members and at the time of the trip Jane and Mike aspirant members (since elected to full membership in 2003). As for several previous ski touring trips we had hired Martin Burrows-Smith (BMG) to be our guide.
The 'profile' links below refer to a separate page in which the altitude in metres versus time in hours has been plotted for each day of the trip. This information demonstrates graphically just how much climbing is involved in a Haute Route trip!
Argentière (Grand Montets 3297m), Rognons Glacier, Argentière Glacier (2580m), Col du Chardonnet (3323m) down to 3091m, Fenêtra du Saleina (3261m), Col d'Orny (3098m), Trient Hut (3170m). [profile]
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| After three days of waiting for the conditions to improve. The team about to set off from the Grand Montet, the Col du Chardonnet in the background. | |
| Abseiling down the Col du Chardonnet. One of our team, Ken, forgot his rucksack and Jane had to trail it down for him! |
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| "Fresh tracks" on the approach to the Fenêtra du Saleina. Snow conditions were bad, breakable crust (wind slab) over deep fresh snow. We arrived at the Trient Hut after nightfall but we were still an hour in front of the other parties! |
Trient Hut (3170m), Col des Ecandies (2796m), Val d'Arpette, Champex (1460m), bus to Verbier (1500m), ski-lift to Les Attelas (2733m), Mont Fort Hut (2457m). [profile]
| Approaching the Cols des Ecandies. Lots of snow covering the glacier. However we later learnt that the party behind us had to rescue someone from a crevasse. They abandoned their trip in Champex. | |
| Looking back towards the Cols des Ecandies. Great powder snow conditions on the way down. |
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Mont Fort Hut (2457m), Glacier de la Chaux, Col de la Chaux (2940m), down to (2764m), Col de Momin (3003m), 3160m, Rosablanche (3336m), Glacier de Prafleuri, Prafleuri Hut (2624m). [profile]
| Looking back at the Mont Fort Hut | |
| Approaching the Col de la Chaux |
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| Neville, Mike, Ken, Alan and Jane on the summit of the Rosablanche.
Our guide Martin on the summit of the Rosablanche. I guess having to take photographs of the clients is one of a Guides key chores. |
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| The Prafleuri Hut. Unusually this Hut was manned in March of this year. We were the only party to be staying so we received full attention and first class treatment. It was cold at night though! |
Prafleuri Hut (2624m), Col des Roux (2864m), La Barma (2458m), rising traverse to (2750m), aborted by avalanche and snow-holed. [profile]
| A day of variable weather and snow conditions. We were often faced with poor visibility and there was a high avalanche risk! | |
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| At times the visibility improved and we could see the valley in all it's glory. However the avalanche risk finally demonstrated itself with a big slide in front of us. The weather closed in and we ended the day in a snow hole! |
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Snow-hole, descend to end of lac de Dix, Glacier de Cheilon, Pas de Chèvres (2855m), Arolla (2006m). [profile]
 | The following morning we could look back along our tracks which crossed the avalanche. Our tracks from the previous day converged with these at the site of the snow hole. | |
| We had another opportunity to look back across the valley from the top of the Pas de Chèvres. Neville and Martin are at the top of the ladder. The amount of snow in the valley is apparent. |  | |
 | Descending to Arolla was magical. There was a low cloud in the valley and we slowly disappeared down into the mist one by one. |
Arolla (2006m), ski-tow to 2400m, cross bottom of glacier up to summer path to the cabin (2519m), Vignettes Hut (3160m). [profile]
 |  | The following day on the way up we still had to contend with avalanche prone slops but the weather was fine. You can see the pinnacle of Tsa in the background and Neville is bringing up the rear of the group. |
| Hi Neville! So that's what those nose pieces look like! |  | |
 | A view back down the glacier from the Vignettes Hut. |
Vignettes Hut (3160m), down to 3053m, Col de l'Evêque (3392m), across top of Haute Glacier d'Arolla, Col du Mont Brulé (3213m), Haut Glacier Tsa de Tsan, below Bouquetins Hut, Col de Valpelline (3568m), Stockji glacier, Zermatt glacier (2200m), Zermatt (1600m). [profile]
 | Great powder snow skiing down from the Col de l'Evêque | |
| After the descent it's time to put the skins on the skis once again for the next ascent. This was a long day of ups and downs! |  | |
 | The trek up to the Col du Mont Brulé and the fantastic view of our tracks behind sums up the trip. Brilliant! These were superb ski touring conditions and no crowds. | |
| The Matterhorn finally came into view as we reached the top of the Col de Valpelline. |  | |
 | The obligatory team photo! | |
| The view of the Matterhorn dominated the scenery on the long ski down to Zermatt. |  |
Ski-Lift to Klein Matterhorn (3800m), Breithornpass (3824m), Breithorn (4164m), Breithornpass (3824m), piste to Gandegg Hut (3026m), Zermatt (1600m). [profile]
 |  | Lunch on top of the Breithorn |
 | Jane and Ken proudly posing in front of the Breithorn, after stopping for a welcome break at the Gandegg Hut on the way down. |
Train and Ski-Lift to Stockhorn (3405m), Stockhorn summit (3532m), Stockhorn Pass (3394m), top of Findeln Glacier, Adler Glacier, Adler Pass (3789m), Britannia Hut (3030m). [profile]
 | View of the Matterhorn and the Breithorn from the Stockhorn | |
 | And a view looking back from the top of the Adler Pass | |
| Approaching the Brittania Hut at the end of a long day and also the last evening of our journey. It was April 1st, Jane's birthday, and the hut guardian treated her to a cake with candles and a song! |  |
Britannia Hut (3030m), via piste to Saas Fee (1800m) [profile]
The characters on the Haute Route trip in 1999 were,
All photographs and text © 1999 Mike Clark.
The pictures of our Haute Route trip shown here were taken using an Olympus mu zoom 35-70mm on Kodak Gold 200 film. The six rolls of negative film were all scanned onto two Photo CDs. Most of the shots came out very well. For the images shown here the Photo CD images were converted to jpeg compressed files using an Acorn RiscPC and PhotoDesk 3 software. You can see the complete set of overview images from the CD image pacs as two jpg files.
Mike Clark
