The Haute Route is a legendary ski tour - departing Chamonix and traversing the Alps to finish off in Zermatt in the shadow of the Matterhorn.  It is a very popular ski touring route, and last week we had a full group of six, led by French Guide Greg Sauget. It was an extremely international group, with Edson from Brazil, Sarah from Australia, Daniel from Israel, Tony from New Zealand, Hannes from Iceland and Arne from Norway. Despite very mixed weather, they made it all the way across to Zermatt and had some beautiful days of great touring and skiing.

Leaving the mighty peaks of the Argentiere basin (Le Verte, Les Droites and Les Courtes) behind, you head up and over one of the bigger passes of the Haute Route, the Col du Chardonnet, on day two. You are already then in Switzerland and at the Trient refuge.

During a 7 day ski tour like the Haute Route you normally get to experience all sorts of snow and weather conditions, as this group discovered. You can have sunny days skinning uphill in a t-shirt and bitterly cold snow storms with minus 25 temperatures. You go from villages in the valleys where the flowers start blooming to glaciated high Alpine peaks. The highest point you cross over is the Pignes d’Arolla at 3790m.

There are many multi-day ski tours in the Alps that are less famous but at least as great if not better. Next winter we will be running one or two alternative ski tours to the Haute Route. Keep an eye on our website or subscribe to our newsletter for more information.  

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photo-blog elizabeth 15 Apr 2008 No Comments

Brothers Alex and Fabian did an Introduction to Ski Touring week with their Chamonix Experience guide Dave Etherington. They spent four days ski touring and exploring different areas of the Chamonix valley to finish off with a ski tour of the Grand Paradiso in Italy. In the Val Savarenche there are no lift so you have to skin from the valley floor. They went up to the Chabod hut where they stayed the night prior to the ascent.

An early morning started with a few hours skinning towards the summit. The Grand Paradiso is one of the many 4000m peaks of the Alps and a really nice peak to ski tour….normally. Unfortunately, it turned out that that this season the Grand Paradiso area has not had that much snow, so the glacier was quite hard and icy in places.

You get beautiful views from the summit, looking back at the Mont Blanc range in one direction and over the Italian Alps in the other. The descent could have been easier and more pleasant if the snow conditions would have been better, but you have got to ski whatever mother nature provides when you are ski touring, which is part of the challenge and the beauty of this mountain sport.

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photo-blog elizabeth 15 Apr 2008 No Comments

At the end of the week, the Ski Touring Course participants decided that they should probably stop playing in the lift-accessed powder and get down to some ski touring. Guide Sebastien chose the Rhemes-Notre-Dame valley in the Aosta region of Italy. Leaving Chamonix, they headed through the Mont Blanc Tunnel to Italy. After about a three hour drive, they parked the car, put their skins on and were immediately befriended by a big white furry dog, who then accompanied them the entire way to the refuge! What Italian hospitality…

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photo-blog elizabeth 03 Apr 2008 No Comments

This week’s Ski Touring Introduction Course consisted of six participants: Claire, Zoe, Edson, Sarah, Uta and Christoph. Sébastien Laurent was the guide, and had his work cut out for him with an unusual dilemma: we had almost too much snow for safe ski touring! Of course, no-one was complaining as they were forced to do run after run of the white fluffy stuff…..the pictures speak for themselves!

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photo-blog elizabeth 27 Mar 2008 No Comments

We have spaces available on an Avalanche Awareness Course that is running on Monday, the 24th of March. If you ski off-piste, or do any backcountry skiing, ski touring or ski mountaineering, your avalanche awareness skills should definitely be up to speed! 

A certified Mountain Guide will take you to one of the ski areas in the Chamonix valley and teach you all about mountain safety regarding avalanches: how to read the terrain, taking into account wind, temperature, aspect and weather history; how to ski safely; and if all preventative measures fail, what to do if an avalanche does occur. After learning the practical theory, you will have the chance to do your own searches using avalanche transceivers.

For more info, click here, and to book, click here.

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news elizabeth 18 Mar 2008 No Comments

To finish off a fabulous and powder-filled off-piste course, the Off-Pisters decided that they had enough energy to go ski touring. They took the cable car to the top of Les Grands Montets, skied down the Rognons glacier and across the Argentière glacier.  

Once across the glacier, the team stopped to put their skins on their skis and then started the sweaty uphill….. (more…)

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photo-blog elizabeth 12 Mar 2008 No Comments

There are still places left on the Chamonix-Zermatt Haute Route ski tour at the end of this winter. Chamonix Experience are running weekly trips from the end of March to the beginning of May. This is a fantastic ski tour not to be missed for those who have the ski touring bug.

If you have not yet tried this sport we do not recommend that you go straight on the Haute Route but instead start with the Ski Touring Intro Course. This will take you to many different areas in the Mont Blanc range and finish off with a 4000m summit. Not bad for a start!

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news Martina Palm 27 Feb 2008 No Comments

Opposite Mont Blanc is the Aiguilles Rouges with many ski touring possibilities. Slightly lower and less glaciated but nevertheless challenging.

Starting from the Index chair lift at Flegere you go pretty much straight up. You can skin most of the way but the last little bit is getting a bit too steep and narrow and you are better off putting crampons on and boot packing up. (more…)

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photo-blog Martina Palm 10 Feb 2008 No Comments