I just found this video posted one week ago. So I assume parts of it are two weeks old.
I assume it was this year as it is titled haute route 2010. Haute route 2010
It looks like there is some Ice and snow between Mont fort and Prafleuri but off the trail and some sections which did not look bad over ice. I assume its melted since then as well.
Sorry for the late reply, was back on Sunday but then straight off on a business trip for a few days.
Had an awesome time, the weather was fantastic for the whole trip. Did the whole trail in 10 days and camped the whole way, had a few amazing nights wild camping (definatly recommend camping at Lac de Louvie, sitting outside the tent watching the sunset over Les Grand Combins was one of the many highlights of the trip for me)
Water is readily available throughout, I never carried more than 2 litres.
Snow wasn't as much of an issue as i thought it would be. All snow was avoidable apart from the section between Col de Louvie to Col de Praflerui. There was still significant amounts of snow here. That said, it was very soft due to the warm weather (it was above 20 degrees for most of my trip ) and i was more than happy to tackle it without axe or crampons. I am a pretty experinced winter mountaineer and very confident on moving on snow. Other people my prefer to have an axe with them, and obviously need the skills to know how to use one! With the conditions i had crampons would have been useless as snow was to soft. This may be different if the weather was significantly colder. Make you own decision on this based on your level of experince.
Footwear wise, I used trail shoes (Inov8 Terrocs) and was completley happy with my choice. Again this will come down to personel prefernce. I havent done the TMB but believe that the HR was a much rougher trail so if you felt that you needed boots for the TMB would probably want to go with them again.
A lot of the Europeans I saw on the trail were wearing B2 alpine boots (even say one masochist wearing B3! not my idea of fun, much prefer being light on my feet)
For those planning on camping along the way please note the following:
Campsite in Sembrancher is for caravans only, not tent camping available and nowhere to wild camp in the surrounding area due to lots of industrial activity
Campsite in Zinal has been closed
Wild camping is possible along quite a lot of the trail as long as you descrete and look hard enough for spots off the trail, free standing tent would be an advantage.
I'll leave it at that as dont want to spoil to much of the adventure of the trail for you, but if theres any other info your after just let me know. Just make sure you going as light as possible (my base pack weight was 8kg including full camping kit and a big heavy SLR camera) so you can enjoy it, the climbs are long and incredibly steep!
Re Europaweg was there any talk of the trail being "closed"? I think the host of the europahut mentioned that there is a new bridge somewhere in the area ( if I understood her correctly) .
Im slightly concerned that you suggest a "free standing tent" as I'll be using a two-man tunnel tent that survived well on the TMB, always camping below 2500m but I guess may be a bit difficult to pitch on the higher, rockier terrain, specifically the Mont Fort - Praflerui section. Could you offer some advice on where you camped for this bit?
Also, how did you overcome the camping situation at Sembrancher? Did it involve walking a long way to find a wildcamping spot?
Also, Im planning to catch the train back from Zermatt to Geneva. Do I need to look at booking this in advance (ie. from Chamonix) or can I just turn up at the station on the day? Last time I used Swiss trains Im pretty sure I just turned up at the station and bought my ticket...
With regard to the Swiss Railway ticket; just turn up at the station and buy it or buy it the night before explaining that you want it dated for the next day. No reservations should be needed. Timtables on www.sbb.ch in English if you want them.
Very few of the Visp - Geneva trains have any refreshments - not even a snack trolley. Stock up before you travel. Have a great trip.
Bewteen Cab. de Mont Fort and Col de Prafleuri I camped at the N end of Lac de Louvie. Just a couple of hours walk past the cabane. Definatley the best wild camp spot I had the whole trip, though it did leave me with a long day from their to Arolla. But you could just have a nice lie in and then walk to the hut at Prafleuri or on to Cab. des Dix
With Sembrancher you could either stay in Champex which was a very nice wee town, I just arrived their too early in the day, or continue on to Le Chable and stay in the B&B. All the land betwen Champex and Le Chable is either pasture land of gravel pits so not really anywhere to wild camp without potientally ending up with an angry farmer at your tent door!
Trains, just book them when you get to Zermatt. Theres automatic machines in the train station so dead easy.
A free standing tent would give you the option of just popping in donw on top of rock slabs or just camping directly on the trail. I used an Akto and had no problems though did stay in a few campsites in towns. Let me know if you want any suggestions for wild camp spots
Thanks Conor, Our plan is basically to camp (proper sites or sensible/necessary wild spots) as much as possible as we're on a low budget. A night or two in mountain refuges is fine, as we'd like to experience them for future reference but at £40-odd a night they're generally too expensive for a student and an unwaged person.
I guess I will try to get to Champex at the end of the day then bank on a wild camp between Le Chable and Cab du Mont Fort.
A few more questions: It would be really useful to know where the decent food shops are en route as we intend to cook for ourselves, any suggestions? I've heard that the shop in Champex (near tourist info) is now closed, can anyone confirm this? Also, we're taking gas stoves (a pocket rocket and a camping gaz one), will we be able to get any gas after Argentier or shall we just aim to carry enough for the full 12ish days?
1. SNOW - Not much really and none on any kind of slope that would cause a problem or danger. Saying that, once I reached the end we had 3 nights of bad weather and fresh snow had fallen down to around 2300m around Zermatt though we found paths were clear right up until about 2800m so I doubt this will cause any trouble. The weather was generally pretty good with only 2 days where we walked in rain, but we then had 3 days of bad weather in Zermatt so unfortunately didn't get to see the Matterhorn.
2. We found good supermarkets with fresh food in many places: Argentiere, Champex, Le Chable, Les Hauderes, Zinal, St Nicklaus and Zermatt. Smaller shops with limited ranges, or just touristy expensive ranges: Col de la Forclaz, Gruben (Hotel Schwarzhorn), Randa (Campsite).
3. We used a mixture of accommodation: Campsites in Les Frasserands (nr Argentiere), Col De La Forclaz, Champex, Les Hauderes (a 4* site that was full when we arrived but they kindly let us squeeze a tent in behind a cabin for a night), Randa. We also had a few pretty good wildcamps (and one very bad one) - let me know if you want wildcamp ideas!
Refuge la Barma(z) near to Lac des Dix - We turned up late one afternoon with the intention of wildcamping but this refuge is unmanned during the week and since it looked cosy and cheap (CHF16 per person) we used it. It has a wood burning stove and nice big kitchen though we chose to use our own stove anyway as it wasn't worth using the wood for just two of us. Running water and toilet facilities and dorm for about 15 people. Worth stopping by at even if you dont stay.
Auberge Les Liddes, Zinal - Booked in here as the weather forecast was bad and we didnt fancy looking for a wildcamp. CHF36 each for B&B. Run by an incredibly miserable man, its a pretty basic hostel and was inhabited by a huge group of noisy school kids on a summer camp. As youngsters ourselves we didn't mind the loud music (it was off by 9:30pm anyway) but I think older and moodier forum members would probably find this place hellish. Zinal is a lovely place though and the Auberge Alpina recommended in Kev's Cicerone guide looks very nice.
Hotel Schwarzhorn, Gruben - Again, booked here due to bad weather and tiredness. CHF38 for a very cramped dortoir and breakfast, an extra CHF20 for fairly good 3 course meal. Not being experienced with mountain huts, we were a bit put off by how many people they managed to squeeze in the dortoir. The mattresses were pushed right up next to each other, very cosy indeed, much cosier than any hostel I've stayed in before. I actually landed on my feet though as a moody French walking group insisted that it was not possible for me to sleep in their dorm (the only remaining mattress in the place and they had it lent up against a wall and refused to let me stay in the same room as them as they felt they had booked the room outright), so the lovely waitresses from downstairs let me have a twin room for myself at no extra cost!
Overall, we found the timings in the Cicerone guide to be pretty accurate and therefore lead to fairly short days so if you're fit and enthusiastic you could double up a few stages. We generally found we were knackered and willing to spend the afternoons sunbathing though. Our bags were too heavy for my liking. I reckon we carried close to 20kg including food and water, I didn't carry anywhere near that much when I did the TMB so im going to spend the next few days working out what I did wrong...
Let me know if there are any questions you need answering.
Off in a few days - and wondering what the situation is the the Europaweg, heard that they just finished a suspension bridge and maybe other improvements.
Any possibilities for finding discreet/off-trail camping on the Europaweg section? Ideas?
Didn't do the Europaweg section unfortunately as we preferred the sound of an extra chill out day at the end since the weather forecast was absolutely dire when we got to St. Niklaus. Spoke to a couple of people who did it and all they said was that near Gasenreid they had a loose rocky section that they thought was "dangerous". They also had to stay put in Gasenreid for an extra night due to the poor weather forecast.
Didn't meet any other campers on the trek so didn't manage to pick up any tips from them.
Some wildcamp advice: After spending a night at the campsite in Champex, we walked the whole Champex-Le Chable section in the morning, sat there for two hours waiting for the supermarket to reopen so we could stock up, then headed for a semi-wild camp in the BBQ area mentioned in the Cicerone guide, just above Clambin. It was deadly quiet - up a dirt track and away from civilisation - from about 7pm and we thought we were onto a winner, having nice tables and benches to eat dinner on and a good water source. At 11:30pm, once we were in bed, a load of cars pulled up and a group of "yoofs" started having a party under the shelter. I stayed awake to guard the tent until they left at 1:30am. Not ideal. Would probably be fine on a weekday night but I wouldn't recommend camping here on a weekend as we did - push on for an hour or so and camp in the ski area below Mont Fort instead.
I got back one week ago. we had Ok weather I guess, but I'm from California so I'm picky. Two perfect days 5 cloudy days and one day it was snowing quite hard in the Morning. We were in Gruben and we decided that it was not wise to assend another 800 meters assuming it would be dangerous.
Overall I thought the hike was very tough. I need most of the stuff I brought and I'm glad I didn't cut back, for example I totally soaked 2 shirts the first day, I'm glad I had others.In the damp weather it did not dry so avoiding puting on a wet t shirt in the morning was nice! some here suggested two shirts was enough! smelly is ok but wet would be disgusting! I had a fleece jacket,rain jacket, wool hat, gloves and I'm glad I had them as I was warm in the driving cold rain on one days hike while my wife who did not take my advice on clothes was a popsicle. I lost 5 pounds in 8 days of hiking.
My wife seriously fell just some scrapes and a 6 inch across bruise to her thigh, I did a few easy falls without scrapes.
) and i was more than happy to tackle it without axe or crampons. I am a pretty experinced winter mountaineer and very confident on moving on snow. Other people my prefer to have an axe with them, and obviously need the skills to know how to use one! With the conditions i had crampons would have been useless as snow was to soft. This may be different if the weather was significantly colder. Make you own decision on this based on your level of experince.
