Houte Route - Summary Post

It's a pretty popular walk from Chamonix (France) to Zermatt (Switzerland). In winters, it becomes a cross country ski route, but in summer, it transforms to a hiking route, which traverses through pretty high elevation, hence its called Houte Route (High Route). Unlike backpacking in the US, this backpacking was supposed to be much easier, as we were basically staying in hotels/dorms, and we didn't have to carry tents, sleeping bags, and food. 
 

But, we were surprised how hard some of the hiking days were. 

We were a group of 6 friends.  My wife (Mona) and I were the most "untrained hikers"; others in our group were more committed and better prepared than us. We expected to walk through Swiss meadows, mountain villages, hi-fi ing cows along the ways. Even though some days were exactly like that, around 1/3 of the trails were very tough and tested us physically and mentally. 

Here is a very brief summary of our daily adventures on the trail.

Day 1 : Chamonix -> Argentiere 
Miles : 6.7 miles
Elevation Gain : 1530 ft

This was a gentle introduction to our backpacking journey. An easy hike while getting used to the weight of our backpacks. We took our time on this hike, hiking through very touristy Chamonix. We stocked up on nuts, energy bar etc. We also had our best coffee on this entire trip on this morning. We just saw many people queued up in front of coffee shop and took our chance on the wisdom of crowd.

The trail was just a pleasant walk next to a river. We reached the village of Argentiere, just in time to enjoy a mind boggling vegan burger in a vegetarian restaurant (imagine a vegetarian restaurant in a tiny mountain village in France). 

Day 2: Argentiere Glacier Hike 
Miles : 7.5 miles
Elevation Gain : 4000 ft

This was an optional day hike, meant to get our body ready for the tougher hikes with backpacks, with the promise of getting real up close to a glacier. 

The hike was tough; we made it tougher by us choosing to scramble over rocks instead of walking on an alternate wide and direct trail. But our rock scrambling was rewarded by intermittent views of glaciers and multiple waterfalls creating ephemeral rainbows. 

I made the hike even more adventurous by going down to the glacier. I stood on the glacier for fully 3 mins while Mona was screaming her lungs offs worried I would fall down a crevasse. 

Standing on a glacier

Day 3: Argentiere -> Trient
Miles: 9.5 miles
Elevation Gain: 4000 ft 

This was finally the type of hike which was more typical of the route. We had to go from one village to the other with a few mountains in our path. The hike wasn't tough even though the elevation gain was 4000 ft; it was gentle and the trail itself went through mostly meadows, but it was long. During this hike, we crossed the border from France to Switzerland. We knew we were in Switzerland by the sound of cow bells in the air. The weather was very foggy and it was almost mystical experience hearing the bells through the fog.

 

Day 4: Champex-Lac - Fenêtre d'Arpette - Trient
Miles: 10.5 miles
Elevation Gain: 4500 ft

The toughest hike on the route. It was hyped up to have the best views that we would see in the entire route. There was an alternate route available which didn't have the elevation gain as this one, but against all our wisdom, we decided to take the tougher route. And boy-o-boy was it tough, not only the total elevation was around 4500 ft but it was made tougher by loose gravel, rock scrambles which went for eternity (both on the way up and down) and punishing super steep sections which entailed us getting down on our butts and inching forward on tricky terrain (with the heavy backpacks). The final view from the "Fenetre" was bit of a downer, to be honest. Fenetre means window in French, it was meant to be window to the Alps, but we missed the obvious hint it the name; it was just a window to a small village called Arpette (which was hidden by clouds anyways).

We started the hike at around 8:30 AM and walked almost till 8:00 PM. This was the most mentally challenging hike which we had done till this point.

The highlights on the trail was Trient glacier, which extending out over mountain and family of Ibexes, which greeted us during our hike.

Trient glacier

Ibexes

View from the Fenetre

Day 5: Champex-Lac -> Les Chable

Off day: took buses and trains to get to Les Chable. Before starting for the day, we dipped in the cold Champex lake, gave a tiny serving of rowdy American tourists to a sleepy Swiss village.

In the village of Les Chable, we had our first real ethnic meal since we started the hike (before this it was burgers, bread, and cheese and European version of "curry") we indulged in Pad-thai worth a whopping 30 CHF :D.

Champex Lac

Day 6: Les Chable -> Cabane Mont Forte
Miles: 3 miles
Elevation Gain : 1000 ft

Another kind of an off day. The hotel where we stayed gave us free ski lift passes; it was almost criminal not to use it, hence we skipped the hike to Cabane and took gondola to it. It was a short 3 miles hike from the Gondola station to the Cabane.

The Cabane Monte Forte was recently renovated, it was more like a resort than a mountain hut. The view from the Cabane was unreal, watching the sun set here was one of the highlights of the trip.

It touted an in-house bakery; supposedly one of the few bakeries at that elevation (around 8000 ft). The croissants here were heavenly and they followed it with a 3 course vegetarian meal for the dinner.

Sunset view of Combine Range from Mont Forte

Day 7 : Cabane Monte Forte -> Cabane Louvie
Miles : 6.5 miles
Elevation Gain: 2500 ft

Basically walk from one mountain hut to the next. We went through a meadows filled with wildflowers and gamut of butterflies. Occasionally, our route was obstructed by grazing cows, who were as confused as us regarding who had the right of way on the trail. Some of the trail ran through the very edge of the mountain and offered glorious views of the valley below. 

Cabane Louvie was very pretty and sat on a cliff next to an alpine lake. We decided to take a dip in it and give our muscles another round of cold shock therapy.  

Butterfly !

Trail on the edge

Cabane Louvie 

Louvie Lake

Day 8: Cabane Louvie -> Cabane Prafleuri 
Miles: 7.87 miles
Elevation Gain: 3678 ft

Third mountain hut on the trot. The hike was tougher and we had to climb higher. Infact, it was comprised of 3 smaller hikes, each began with ascending through a valley crossing through a mountain pass (Col in French) and going down to repeat this again. The entire hike was above the tree line, and offered bleak rocky terrain with intermittent view of snow capped mountains in horizon. Some sections very tricky and slippery. 

View of the Grand Combine

Rocky and Barren Landscape above treeline

Ibexes attracted to salt kept by Prafleuri staff

Day 9  : Cabane Prafleuri  -> Arolla 

Mona decided we had enough of hiking and skip this section. The planned hike was 11 miles and had a few tricky sections. We took 3 buses to skip this hike. In the process, we found out how expensive is Swiss public transport like everything else in Switzerland.

The hotel we stayed on this day was very pretty with great views of surrounding glaciers. To our great surprise, it had Sauna, Steam bath, and Jacuzzi to top it off. We took the opportunity to use all 3 and gave our legs much needed love.

Our hotel decked up with flowers

View from our hotel

Day 10: Arolla ->  Le Hauderes 
Miles: 5.4
Elevation Gain : 1200 ft

Beautiful valley hike, walked through meadows with views of cows grazings and mountains villages. We stopped at Lac Bleu, possibly the coldest lake water we experienced. It was quite a picnic spot, with people around the lake cheering the select brave hearts, who managed to swim across the lake; it was almost 50 feet wide. We dipped our feet and timed ourselves to stay in the water for atleast a minute.

Lac Bleu- Super Cold 

Hiking through Meadows

Day 11: Le Hauderes  -> Cabane Moiry
Miles: 8.24 
Elevation Gain : 6500 

One of the toughest hikes on this route. We had to climb 6500 ft within 8 miles. The first 4 miles were relentless, and we climbed over 4500 ft through forests, meadows, and mountain passes. Then, we descended into to a valley, which had breathtaking view of Moiry Glacier, coming down a mountain and melding with Moriy Lake. But, unfortunately, it was start of a never ending uphill to get to the Cabane. It was drizzling as we went up, which made the uphill hike over rocky parts more "interesting". 

The Cabane has a magnificent common room with glass windows all the way from floor to celling, which offered unobstructed view of the glacier.

First Glimpse of the Glacier

Moiry Glacier

from "Inside" the Cabane

Day 12: Cabane Moiry -> Zinal
Miles: 6.34
Elevation Gain : 2258 

It was hard to say good bye to the Moiry glacier. But there were great views of the lake as we walked away from the valley. 

This hike was not tough, but our legs protested all along the way, the stress has been accumulated for the last few days. We skipped final down hill by taking the lift down.

Moiry lake

Mountains + Glacier + Cows = Switzerland

Day 13: Zinal -> Gruben
Miles:  8.0
Elevation Gain : 2211

The original hike to finish this section was 10 miles and 4000 ft elevation. We weren't keen to walk this one, but the public transport option to complete this section required us taking 5 connections.

Fortunately, we found a middle ground, taking 2 buses took us to an alternative route, which went through a different mountain pass that brought down the mileage by 2 and more importantly reduced the uphill climb by 2000 ft. The hike was pleasant and went through meadows filled with blueberries (we foraged them with gusto) and rocky passes, finally descending through a valley. We were finally in German speaking part of the country (was French till this point). I was looking forward to test my broken German on unsuspecting poor souls.

Adieu Bonjour, Hallo Guten Tag!

Food of the mountains; Blueberry

Misty apparations

Day 14: Gruben.-> St Nikolaus

The weather lords took pity on our sore muscles. This day was wiped out due to heavy rain. All the rivers and streams had swollen, and there was warning from the met department to stay away from mountain passes. 

To skip this section, we had to take a bus from our hotel, which took us to a lift, which descended into a valley. Then walked 20 mins to a train station, then took 2 trains to finally arrive at St Nikolaus. It might have been faster to hike ;).

Day 15: St Nikolaus -> Zermatt

Miles: 12 miles
Elevation Gain: 1500 ft

We decided to skip the hike from St Nikolaus to Europahutte and the subsequent hike from there to Zermatt. We opted to do the valley hike directly to Zermatt and stay there an extra day than we originally intended.  On the hind sight, this cop out was worth its weight in gold and we spend an entire day basking under the glory of the Matterhorn. 

Reflected Matterhorn

Glowing Matterhorn

To sum up:
Total Miles: 93 miles
Total Elevation Gain: ~ 35, 000 ft