The Haute Route, (or The High Route or Mountaineers' Route) is the name given to a route (with several variations) undertaken on foot or by ski touring between Chamonix, France, and Zermatt, Switzerland.
First charted as a summer mountaineering route by members of the Alpine Club (UK) in the mid 19th century, the route takes around 12+ days walking (or 7+ days skiing) the 180 km from the Chamonix valley, home of Mont Blanc, to Zermatt, home of the Matterhorn.
Originally dubbed "The High Level Route" in English by members of a British hiking club, the term was translated into French when first successfully undertaken on skis in 1911. Since then, the French prevails.
While the term haute route has become somewhat genericized for any of the many multi-day, hut-to-hut alpine tours, the "Chamonix-Zermatt Haute Route" remains the original.
Read more about Haute Route: Walking Haute Route, Ski Touring Haute Route
Famous quotes containing the words haute and/or route:
“Cependant, ce fut jadis un bel homme, de haute taille.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“By a route obscure and lonely,
Haunted by ill angels only,
Where an eidolon, named Night,
On a black throne reigns upright,
I have reached these lands but newly
From an ultimate dim Thule—
From a wild weird clime that lieth, sublime,
Out of space—out of time.”
—Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849)