Haute Route: Its All About the Journey – by Chris Peter
Chris Peter is co-chair of the AMC NH Chapter Ski Committee, a member of NH Backcountry Ski Patrol and NH Paw Rescue and an employee of New Hampshire Fish and Game.
When flying back from an adventure of a lifetime, ski touring the world-renown Haute Route through the French and Swiss Alps via backcountry huts, I realized how stunning and different it was to overlook landscapes from 40,000 feet. First cruising over the Alps of Switzerland, then the farms and dikes of Amsterdam and lastly over polar bear territory in Labrador. But I couldn’t help realizing, while reclining in my airplane seat with a warm and reddened face from soaking in too much sun, that these views were lacking something essential. The contrast of making my way on skis, breaking through fresh-untouched snow through incredible terrain with no signs of civilization the days before gave me a strong sense of this.
The Haute route is one of the most popular multi-day backcountry ski tours, which connects the birthplace of alpinism and the home of Mont Blanc in Chamonix, France to the distinct and daunting figure of the Matterhorn in Zermatt, Switzerland. The route is about 75 miles and 20,000 feet typically done over 7-8 days, covering stunning landscapes through the high Alps and sleeping at beautifully perched backcountry huts. My group, which consisted of half Spaniards and half Americans, began this adventure in late March this year. However, a two foot plus snowstorm on the first night detoured day two, forcing a change to our planned route. Unknown to me, it is very rare to complete this tour in its entirety without detours because of the heightened threat of avalanches from new snow, but also glacial crevasses, cliffs and general navigation with poor visibility well above tree line. Ski touring through a cloud with 5-10 feet of visibility is a challenge we don’t often face in New England. Nevertheless, we enjoyed much of the Haute route and its many huts, often skiing completely alone, breaking fresh powder up and downhill, with limited company due to the large storm.
Unlike the Appalachians of NH where you earn your views, around every turn, col and pass in the remote part of the Alps, we were greeted with unworldly views. We ski toured across a series of mountains, frozen lakes, valleys, and blue ice glaciers, being fully immersed in the landscape, weather, snowpack, wildlife including dormant trees and animal prints, danger from cliffs, crevasses, avalanches, tree wells, all with companion adventurers and hut caretakers who live and steward this raw wilderness.
Back on the plane, I also witnessed incredible views and landscapes but it lacked something that has escaped me until now… intimacy from the journey: adventure, trials, hardships, achievements, motion, sweat, hunger, connection to snow, mountains, cols, valley, sunlight, being engulfed in a cloud, cold, danger, alertness, learning, history, and ever changing weather and lighting. All these mountain attributes point toward other senses: feeling, smell, taste, hearing and most importantly time. It’s akin to driving to the top of a mountain vs. hiking it, watching a movie for two hours vs. reading the same story for 20 hours, buying a new house vs. remodeling an older one, or even my work as a coastal biologist. I’ve spent countless hours mucking through salt marshes, studying how plants respond to rising seas. I also study these coastal ecosystems through satellite or drone imagery, which capture an astonishing amount of landscape-level detail but lack the story of stunted plants, anoxic soils and higher salinities.
On the positive side, passive observations immediately reignite my passion to be back in the wilderness, whether around the world or back in NH, spending hours traveling through thick forests for minutes of sweeping views. There is a magnetism pulling me back away from society, yearning to fully re-immerse in new landscapes or revisit ones I’ve already so deeply connected with. The contrast between simply observing nature’s bounty compared to participating in all it has to offer, truly underscores a long embraced but often forgotten universal truth. This world’s ultimate beauty is not found at the destination, but during the journey.
