Haute Route - Travelogue from Chamonix to Zermatt hike

By Aku-Petteri Korhonen

The book is a gripping description of a mountain hike of nearly two weeks made from France’s Chamonix to Zermatt in Switzerland. The trip encompasses the approximately 170-kilometer Haute Route, which advances in the mountain range. Every day on the hike a mountain is crossed, or even three.

The text relays situations that arose along the way and conversations with hikers from around the world, all described in a warm and humorous tone. The writer contemplates the choices a hiker must make and many other matters worth pondering. The book is based on writings made in the evenings after a day of hiking and they vividly reflect the honest thoughts of the writer at the time. Practicalities are featured prominently in the text, as the hike involved day-to-day decisions of accommodation and route choices.

The text is not solely limited to the route in question but includes elements and themes from previous mountain hike experiences. In addition to providing information on the progress made during the route, the text gives insight into practical matters, including equipment, accommodations and securing lodgings. The book makes for a splendid read for those planning a mountain hike and even for those hoping to make the journey from very place they are sitting in.

The book includes over a hundred photos, maps and relevant information regarding the days of hiking.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Books on Demand
• Release date: Mar 12, 2015
• ISBN: 9789523181960

Aku-Petteri Korhonen

Aku-Petteri Korhonen on kokenut pitkien vuoristoreittien kulkija. Hän on kirjoittanut kokemuksistaan Ranskan, Italian, Itävallan, Sveitsin ja Saksan Alpeilla sekä Pyreneillä yhdeksän kirjaa, joista kolme on käännetty englanniksi.

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Wednesday

Day 1

I flew to Geneva from Helsinki on July 10th on a morning plane. Having learnt a lesson from last year, when my luggage remained in Germany during the stopover and it took three days in Chamonix to regain them, I opted for a straight flight this time. The journey continued with a bus ride from the Alpybus bus company after just twenty minutes of waiting, when I exchanged my ticket to an earlier bus. I had booked the bus ticket online in advance. This little bus is a useful and cost-friendly way of moving from Geneva to Chamonix, as the transportation leaves from in front of the airport and takes you to the agreed destination in Chamonix. From henceforth I had no other reservations for the trip apart from a return flight in two weeks’ time.

During the bus ride I sat in the front on the centre seat next to the driver and an English man of about 60. The driver was a thirty-something English woman, who had ended up in Chamonix because of a climbing hobby after different lines of work. She had lived there for a couple of years and gathered money for rent by driving this bus. The man had done hikes in the Chamonix area for twenty years. He had a Ph.D. in medicine and worked as a professor in university in London, where he has researched contagious diseases. During the trip he told how they made forecasts on the spread of different diseases, such as the flu, based on different models and information gathered from around the world. Interesting information.

In Chamonix I first went to a bookstore where I bought maps with markings of the routes. I had begun to doubt that the hike would be successful with just the map of the terrain that I had ordered online, as the path markings in it were so small. It turned out that this shop did not have map with markings of Haute Route either. Instead they sold maps with markings of all walking paths in the region. Each map has dozens of routes’ markings in them. One must know where to go regardless of markings to be able to choose the right route. The shop had 1:50000 maps and 1:25000 versions, and I settled on the first ones. Naturally the more accurate one is better, but I calculated that a couple of dozens of them would have been required to cover the whole route, which would have turned out to be very expensive, not to mention impractical. I studied the route carefully at the shop, spreading maps on the shelves, and I ended up purchasing maps that cover the terrain from Verbier onwards until the route arrives in the valley with Zermatt.

After the map purchases I ate an Annapurna burger at a familiar restaurant. I bought three litres of water and some crackers from the store. I tried to call my French friend Matthieu, who was supposed to be in Chamonix. He did not pick up, though, so I decided to start the journey immediately. As it turned out later, he had been climbing on a glacier up near Aquille du Midi.

The beginning of the route moves along the bottom of the valley. With the temperature at nearly thirty degrees I ended up taking a bus instead of walking to Le Tour at the end of the valley. By asking the tourist office I found the right stop, where I asked the driver of each passing bus whether they was going to Le Tour. They were not, and in fact the drivers were not too talkative and said very little, only indicating by movements of the head that the answer was no. When I tried to ask which bus goes there, I received a reluctant response. They seemed rather tired of silly questions asked by tourists. Finally one diver responded by lifting a finger. As it was not the middle finger, I made sure if the person meant un, i.e. one, and it was so. So I took the bus number one to the small village of Le Tour.

Ten metres from the bus’ final stop was a lift stop with a working lift. I wondered whether I should be a puritan and walk the bottom of the slope even though_there is a lift available. After estimating how long it would take me to get to my destination I decided that I should take the lift. The route was exactly the same, which I took a year ago, so there would be no surprise along the way. I called a place of lodgings located in the valley at the other side of the mountain and reserved a half board.

In the ticket queue in front of me was a rather young Japanese woman, who was told by the salesperson that the last lift would part in an hour and asked her if she would not also buy a return ticket. It appeared as if the woman had not thought about the matter thus far, as she asked how long it would take to get down. As the answer was a couple of hours at least, the woman bought a return ticket too. This was perhaps also influenced by the fact that salesperson told the woman of a storm warning given for the evening. The ticket seller did not ask me about a return ticket but probably deduced from the size of my backpack whether I was going to the other side. I answered yes and bought a one-way ticket. I got in the lift, which happened to be a chairlift, which one boards with skis in the winter.

There is a lodge up in Col de Balme, where I ate about a year ago. Its customer service was not great, so I did not even consider going inside. I had preliminarily thought about going down a different route than last year, but when as it was already three o’clock and most of all because there was a ton of snow up there, I ended up going down the usual route. Another path would have taken me close to the glacier of Arpette, which would have been interesting for a change. Afterwards it is easy enough to state that it was smart that I did not go. I heard from those who did take the route that it had been in bad shape.

The route I chose descends steeply into the valley where the lodge is located. I slipped as I was crossing the stream and entered the water knee-deep. It was a peculiar feeling wearing a tight hiking boot without the foot getting wet at all, even with the tangible water flow. My trouser legs were all soaked. I saw a group of Germans biking downhill, a group of middle-aged men. Somehow it seemed as if they had more enthusiasm than skill for the job. There were a lot of stones on the route, and at times also snow, so you could not really call it biking.

At the lodge I got a spot in the upper bunk. There were six mattresses side by side in a broad bed on two levels. No other people showed up in