Lessons Learned: The Silvretta Haute Route
I skied on the Swiss-Austrian border for the first week of March. This year the snow depth was a little below average, but a storm the weekend beforehand left us awesome turns at high north elevations.
This tour again shined. It’s an awesome place to start learning about the Alps hut ski experience:
Five of the six possible huts are quite large, making it easy to get reservations.
Four have showers!
There are tour options to keep the days short - like 600-750m (2000-2500ft).
There are also tour options to connect the huts in most considerable avalanche hazard problems. They’re not always the shortest route, but they exist! Many other haute route tours have “choke points” that can stop you cold if the weather or avalanche conditions don’t allow for it.
That means a lot of days can be a morning reaching a hut, lunch, and an afternoon getting a second lap in with lighter packs.
Or go big - this last tour’s highlights were two days of skiing more than 1500m/5000ft.
And there are lots of technically low summit objectives that make for a great introduction to ski mountaineering.
The Austrian huts don’t feature the clogs that are ubiquitous in the Swiss huts - instead they charge 3€ for a pair felt slippers that are wicked light and packable. Folks either take them home as a momento or leave them at the last hut.
But this year, I purchased a pair of minimalist “barefoot” shoes for $26 on Amazon. They only weighed 360gm with the mid soles removed!
International Alpine Guides itinerary is a five-night, three-hut plan that allows for two day tours with (slightly) lighter packs.
The Austrian train system is slightly less reliable than the Swiss. I was delayed an hour at the end of the tour, which meant that I was two hours late reaching my destination. Give yourself some grace time making connections to other trains or the airport.
My preference, should I go back:
Start and finish in the Swiss village of Scuola, down in the Engadine valley. This is a charming little place directly at the foot of a small ski area. Three chair lifts and you’re off for the Heidelbergerhütte!
And I love ski tours that travel over terrain, rather than stage for multiple nights out of one hut to day tour (a common plan in the Silveretta). To my end, I have an east-west itinerary that ends in the Davos town of Klosters, and a short train ride takes you back to Scuola!
This itinerary is six to seven days, five to six nights long, as both the fifth and sixth huts have descents to Klosters.
Next year!
I broke my second pair of Dynafit ski crampons. I’m going to switch to Plum.
