by Tony Case
Summer 2003
Two in the afternoon on a soupy cat-track going down to Zermatt, and I’m stuck behind a fur coat in a gliding wedge. Her husband glowers at me as she meanders across the width of the track. Her perfume trails behind her like a dragon’s breath. I’m a few days without a bath, and to be frank, I smell like an orangutan’s been living in my clothes. This woman, plus an awareness of my own aromas, are the only two things standing between me and a cold beer. Do I hang back like a good ski instructor? Not likely! The couple recoils as I blow by. Was I smelling the barn- or was I just smelling LIKE the barn?
Eight days and 50,000 vertical feet before, we had set out from Grands Montets near Chamonix to ski the first leg of the Haute Route. Since then we’d skied nearly every kind of frozen surface- fresh powder, wind crust, hero corn, glacial ice, and fresh cow manure. We’d spent a night in a 10th-century monastery and slept in stone huts along the spine of the Alps. On the way, we spoke French, German, Italian, Spanish, and a little American. We climbed and skied all day, every day, in all kinds of weather. We ate like wolves and slept like rocks. I can’t remember the last time I’ve had so much fun in the mountains.
Our un-guided group was unusual among those on the tour, although by no means unique. The trip is, among other things, an extended mountaineering outing, and part of the Swiss rite of spring. This year was the 100th anniversary of the first traverse of the Haute Route, and for us a celebration of skiing the way it used to be – with no lifts and real mountains. But the Haute Route is modern as well, with assorted carving tools in the gear stacked outside every hut. We saw a few snowboarders out for overnight, and lots of people doing day trips with straight skis and rear-entry boots. Unlike the original party, however, there was only one other telemarker besides the one in our own group.
Somehow, I’d gotten the impression that the Haute Route was easy, but we were all surprised by the sustained effort the trip involved. It was impressive to think of what the traverse would have been like for the first parties in leather boots and wood skis. You’re on open glaciers all day, every day. Consider hiring a guide unless you’re comfortable cramponing up 50-degree snow carrying skis, have a good sense of avalanche safety, and know how to use crevasse rescue gear. We were fortunate to have mostly settled weather and low avalanche danger, but without careful choices in routes and conditions, the tour would have been a much more serious undertaking. On bad days, even with the best equipment, route finding at 12,000 feet in 40-mph winds and freezing fog feels pretty committing.
The guides tend to bring their groups on the easier portions, and to stay away from the difficult sections. So if one sticks to the main route and the larger huts, the Haute Route can be a crowded experience. We mixed the regular route in with a couple of longer alternate ways that left us with the feeling that there were miles of untracked glaciers yet to explore. Although we had a night in a hut with sixty-five or so of our closest friends, I also spent one day entirely alone, skinning up an untracked glacier at 13,000+ feet in primal sunshine. Switzerland has dozens of huts, and depending on your choice of route, there are almost unlimited skiing opportunities.
I found that there were also unlimited opportunities to stretch myself speaking foreign languages. Fortunately, my French partners and I covered for each other’s spotty language skills. I still remembered a bit of the German and Italian they didn’t, and we quickly learned the mountaineering terms we had in common. In fact, everyone we encountered on the trip could at least get by in a second language, but almost nobody spoke all of the languages we encountered on the route.
As the shadows lengthen on the rocks below the Valsorey Hut, I run into Jason, an American I last saw in Las Lenas, nearly two years before. Jason is one of my favorite ski purists, a true dirtbag in the finest sense of that word. No visible means of support, and totally at home in the mountains. When we skied together in Argentina, he’d spent the winter living in a tent near the base lift- the better to get first tracks in the morning. Half a world away, I ask him where he’s living now. “Well,” he says in his slow drawl, “I’ve got a pass this year at La Grave and a car in Girdwood, Alaska.” I am silent, taken in once again by how simple life can really be.
It makes me think of the day when Jason showed up with a new pair of GS skis he’d scored off the Swiss National team. He was wearing the same beat-up sweater and the same smile then as right now, looking off across miles of mountains. We both watch as the glaciers go copper and gold and the shadows fall into the deep blue of the valleys, our two very different realities connected for the moment. Lifelong enthusiasm for the mountain experience, indeed!
2:35 AM. Gianno, the French guide with the pre-cancerous schnozz, exhales a gust of stale tobacco smoke with every snore. The man sounds like a bear with tonsillitis. The snoring stops. I wait. God, isn’t anybody else awake? I think this guy may have stopped breathing. Moments pass- I’m pretty sure now. I immediately push the thought of mouth-to-mouth resuscitation out of my head. Maybe if I just jumped from the top bunk onto his chest…. Gianno erupts into volcanic hacking, then a huge gasp for breath, and settles back into the Kodiak snore. Another high-pitched wheeze joins in from across the room, just on the back-beat.
Two more hours pass without sleep, as one after another, the other bunkmates make the trek to the outhouse in the full moonlight. When my turn comes, I pause outside in the stillness and the faint stars. Incredible. I hope I never forget the peace and beauty I see all around me. I head back inside to my warm bunk, and almost back to sleep. There’s more rustling and snoring, and the aroma of sweaty socks- or is it French cheese? A headlamp clicks on, then another, and I hear whispering in a couple of languages. The predawn scramble starts as we begin to get ready for breakfast.
Next day, we make another small detour from the main route to our final hut on the trip- a yurt, really- on a ridge 4,000’ above the Swiss town of Arolla. This hut is normally closed in winter, so no crowds. Basking in the sun, we spread out our gear on the rocks to dry and start brewing the usual quarts of tea. Seven days of travel, and we’re sunburned, dehydrated, and low on food, Two of us skin up and across the border into Italy to return 4 hours later with pasta, sardines, bread, and a best of all, a bottle of red wine. Not exactly wilderness, and not exactly haute cuisine, but why would I want to be anywhere else?
Along the final climb of the route, we pick up fifteen or so other skiers. Italian ultra-marathoners out to do the traverse in two days, a Spanish college outing club on Spring break, Brits with 60-pound packs on a three-week mountain odyssey. We all stop at the col above Zermatt, taking turns snapping each other’s group photo with the Matterhorn beyond. Then it’s a 6,000 ft descent through crevasses and icefalls, past some of the most beautiful mountains anywhere, and toward the frosty beverage at the end of the trail.
Tony Case is a Tech Director at Ski Klasses Inc. in Stevens Pass, WA. He is also an architect and father of two young instructors.