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Haute Route advice
- richdr
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- jdclimber
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- richdr
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- Scotsman
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There's a lot of terrain.....
I did it about 7 years ago guided and we got hit by bad weather and had to divert to the Verbier Variation which actually turned out to be great.
Cost me $1950, and that was hotel in Cham upon arrival, a day skiing a Grand Monets the day before, all hut fees, meals and bus and lift ticket up to the top of the Grand Monets on departure day... plus guide(s).Bargain when you think about it.
I'm planning on doing it again with my good buddy PNWBrit( Banned) and son Stewart when he graduates college. Although fairly experienced skiers and mountaineers, we will still hire a guide. But YMMV ,so good for you if you go unguided.
I bought a guide book ( since lost) written by a British guy but it wasn't very good.
I have a full set of topographic maps covering the route that I bought in France..... You are welcome to borrow them..just send me a PM with an address and I'll mail them to you if interested.
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- richdr
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- Scotsman
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Partly for the challenge, partly because of cost. I've done a couple guided climbs and in the end I've found more satisfaction when not guided. Thanks for help! I have Peter Cliff's book, which I'm guessing is the one you mean. It's better than nothing but not great by current standards. Sort of like Beckey.
Yep, Peter Cliff's book.... I actually had it when we were on the tour and I really found it terrible.
Let me know about the maps..(.they are great maps, full topographic with all the main routes marked and perfect for self navigation)... as I'm moving house at present and I'll have to get them out of storage....no big deal ...but now's the time to take me up on the offer...or not.
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- jdclimber
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Tips and brain dump:
Cham:
• Throw down the coin and go to Geneva. Save yourself the pain and throw down for a direct-ish flight. Get a shuttle to Cham, we used Alpy Bus, but there are a bunch. Remember, they are Swiss and run like a Swiss Watch.
• We stayed in Argentiere (Gite Belevedere), should have stay in Cham proper. Search for “Gites” kinda like “hostel” in French. No buses run to Argentiere in the evening and taxis are super spendy. Otherwise buses in the valley are free or at least we never figured out how to pay for them. Also, consider hotels, super cheap that time of year.
• Hit the Valle Blanche if you can, super wild, big country.
• Cham has a couple great gear shops.
Maps:
• Martigny 282-s
• Mischabel 284S
• Arolla 283s (spelling is right on those ones)
• GPS- I ratted around, downloaded all base maps to my GPS and waypoints. Took me a while, will have to figured out what I did. Also snagged GPS tracks from the web, can send links, worked well for me.
• New book, super good, Haute Route, Chamonix-> Zermatt. Didier Lavigne and Francois Damilano, got mine in Cham.
Money and coms:
• They hate the credit card at the huts, go with Euro or Francs for the huts, figure 100 Euro per person per night.
• Check out insurance, I went with AAC, after reading the wildsnow.com blog not sure that was the right call. Do your homework.
• Cell phones, consider an unlocked one buy a sim card, and charger. I did all wifi calling and worked awesome. My buddy J had a german cell phone, did most of our reservations/day off stuff.
Reserving Hut:
• Do it early (now through Feb). However if a small group, you can get away with it because just about everyone is guided, to they need to fit groups of 4-12.
• I had J make the reservations, since he speaks German and French. He did all reservations via English and email. Guess I was dumb.
Crap to bring:
• Hostel sheets
• Ski crampons
• Climbing crap/axe, harness, glacier stuff, etc.
• Ear plugs
• Light everything
• Swiss hut coffee sucks, bring Via, be happier.
• Hut lunches are not cheap, consider bringing a bunch of your own bars and such for lunch.
• Rope – we brought 60M only to learn the rap on day 2, which we skipped was fixed by the guides. Would have preferred a 30M.
Zermatt:
• Tourist bureau is actually the place to get info and a reservation. 2 star means clean, but not amenities. Add a pool, get a star, add a tennis court, get another half star, 24 hour staff, add a star, you get the idea (FYI, this is the idea, not the exact items in the systems). They have all the beta on all the hotels in town on any given night (like tonight) by star rating, right next to train station.
• Leave your crap in Cham. Go back at end of tour. Or arrange a shuttle.
• Buy shoes in Zermatt at the grocery store (yup), cheap and stylin’
• Zermatt is super expensive, think that you need to have fun and once in a lifetime…..
• Over the hill in Italy the food is cheap and super tasty.
• Buy a Bogner 1 piece, still hip over there.
Guides:
• Different culture over there. Most folks are guided. Respect the history and tradition.
• Guides bring business to huts. Huts take great care of guides, give them special rooms, free booze, etc. It is a business arrangement to get them coming to their huts. Once I figured that out, I did not take it personally.
• Don’t draft guides. That is not cool.
• If you are self guided, that is what it means. The euros move fast and go light, let them pass if you are weaker but not if you are trying to dodge the work of route finding or putting in the track. You will be weaker.
• Some guides will perceive you as a freeloader and someone who is taking away their business by winging it. Don’t be that guy.
• Alps are an unfamiliar mix of civilization, never more than 2-3 hours away, tops. Yet totally uncontrolled, marked or regulated. Real easy to get dead. Don’t.
• Seriously consider a guide if any of this sounds like either not that much fun, or a lot of work, or if you are not 100% solid guiding yourself. It gets real serious real fast over there, even if there are trams everywhere and towns in between.
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- richdr
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- Scottk
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Much cheaper than Switzerland. I think it was about 44 Euros/day/person + wine/beer and a 2 Euro shower. And everyone makes their lunch out of the cheese, meat, and bread served at breakfast.
None of the groups we talked to were guided and most people were quite friendly. Probably helped that we both speak a bit of German. The few groups that looked like they were guided seemed uptight and standoffish (we just speculated that they were guided, so that might be unfair).
I would go back to the Silveretta without a guide in a heartbeat. Needless to say, I would be pretty cautious about venturing off in stormy weather. The navigation would be tricky in a white-out. We were there in February and it's pretty easy to get reservations during the week. It also seemed pretty easy to change your itinerary at the last minute as long as it wasn't a weekend with nice weather. The place was packed on Saturday night and half empty on Sunday night. Furthermore, the staff was quite stressed on the busy night and super friendly when the place was only half full.
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- Zap
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I remember we stayed in the Valsorey Hut for 4 or 5 days due to a large storm. All the guided groups went down to town because the guides made a change. We were the only folks in the hut, and we taught our hut warden about 2 for 1 beer in the afternoon. The most difficult part of the trip was from Valsorey Hut straight up to the Plateau du Couloir, which is a 50 degree slope that had fresh snow.
We also had “The Haute Route, Chamonix to Zermatt” book by Peter Cliff which just came out in 1993. We arrived at the Vignette Hut, and a person asked us about the weather from the Chanrion Hut. We talked and exchanged names. It was Peter Cliff. We had a great dinner and chat with Peter Cliff. The toilets at the Vignette were great looking down.From Zermatt, we stayed at Monte Rosa Hut and then toured to Saas Fee.
After the trip we returned to Chamonix. Then with one of my friends on the trip, we toured and skied off Mount Blanc.
Great trip!
Zap
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- Jeff_Ward
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Full disclosure - I am a guide that has been guiding the Haute Route for the last 10 years but I'm psyched to run into non-guided parties from the states. My French and German is pretty poor so it's nice to run into other 'merican speakin' people in the huts.
Have fun!
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- richdr
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- drescj
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- richdr
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First, my buddies and I had a great trip. We left Argentiere April 15 2014 and arrived in Zermatt April 20. Self-guiding was not an issue.
Second, I think we ran into Jeff Ward on the trip! Jeff, weren't you guiding Scott & Steve on the Verbier variation? I have photos of you.
Rich
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- snoholic
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- Jeff_Ward
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Second, I think we ran into Jeff Ward on the trip! Jeff, weren't you guiding Scott & Steve on the Verbier variation? I have photos of you.
Rich
Rich,
No Scott or Steve on the trip I was guiding this year. That must have been some other American Guide. There are lots of them over there these days. Glad to hear you had a good trip.
Jeff
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- T. Eastman
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