Like shouldered rifles hundreds of shaped rondinee skis flow between the bright store fronts and the tramp of ski boots beat a steady rhythm beneath the sound of German, Italian and French voices.  Coming off the Haute route, week old beards, dark tans and raccoon white circles around eyes shielded by high altitude glasses speak eloquently of victory. And just as eloquent, the slow deliberate step of badly blistered feet and thousand-yard stares from too many nights without sleep salutes the penalty.

The High Road.  This classic ski trek from Saas-Fee to Chamonix, France is well named.  Records exist of ski mountaineering in the Bernese Oberland as early as 1850, but until January of 1903 when a party of six Chamoniard alpinists pioneered the route from Chamonix to Zermatt, primitive equipment and early ski technique discouraged winter attempts. With the late 19th century improvement of both, what had once been the exclusive summer domain of climbers, goat herders and chamois hunters was invaded by the first guides and their clients.

In 1904, the Frenchman Hugo Mylius and three Swiss guides made the first ski ascent of Mont Blanc. In the following years the Monte Rose, Finsteraarhorn and the Bernese Oberland were skied but it was not until April of 1910 that the final section from Zermatt to Saas Fee over the Adler Pass was pioneered, linking what is now considered the classic trek.

In the twenties when many of the huts were built, supply was important, but just as important was sanctuary from the huge North Atlantic storms that periodically slam into the Alps. Whan a meter of snow falls in two days, travel among these exposed peaks was impossible.  Then, as now the only way out was down.

The Haute Route's eastern embarkation point is the Brittaniahutte.  Anchored to a high cliff above Saas Fee where, for the past seventy years it has been spared by avalanches, the hutte is owned by the Swiss Alpine club. While the Brittaniahutte was built to house one hundred and twenty trekkers, in the past years that number often exceeds two hundred.  To accommodate this growth, reservations must be made months in advance and still many are forced to sleep on the floor.

Aldo Lomatter, my guide, tells me that in the past every bottle of wine, every loaf of bread, every sack of rice, every blanket, plate and pencil used during the winter had to be packed up by porters. Today it takes an hour for a helicopter to accomplish what used to require months.

In the time since, thousands have turned the classic Haute Route into an alpine highway with accompanying problems of overcrowded huts and inexperienced skiers dying in the route’s hidden crevasses and extreme chutes. Due in part to the revolution in mountaineering boots, skis and clothes as well as the cost of lift passes and the beauty of the Swiss Alps, many regard the Haute Route as a pilgrimage, a chance to test oneself against rock faces, rivers of ice and rapidly moving storms.

From Saas Fee to the French border the Haute Route crosses the roof of the Canton Valais, or Valley region of Switzerland.  Since 50 AD when the Roman Emperor Claudius ruled what was known as Civitas Vallensium, the Valais, has served as a fertile corridor from Italy to France.  Between the Valais’ highest peaks and valley floor there is a twelve-thousand-foot difference in elevation which, in large part, accounts for its startling diversity.

Tracing the Haute Route on a topo map, you will see that the huts are not only a day's hike from one and other but also within an hour ski down to the villages of Saas-Fee, Zermatt, Arolla, Verbier and Argentière.

Set in the shadow of the Matterhorn's North Wall, this three-story stone refuge serves as a way station for the twelve-hour hike over three passes to the Cabin De Vignettes. To cross this distance, skiers start at 4:30 a.m. by side slipping down a dark, icy face that leads from the Schonbiel Glacier to the eleven-thousand-foot-high Col De Valpelline. Aldo cautions me to take care, as illuminated by our headlamps, the track zig zags up a steep, icy face. Dawn lights towers of iridescent blue glacial ice, dark rock faces and whirling clouds.

Once the grade flattens on the Col de Valpelline, the pace increases but it is still late afternoon when we reach the Col de l'Eveque and start the long descent toward the Cabin De Vignettes.

Weather changes quickly on the Haute Route. A distant dark cloud bank gives us an hour of warning before wind and blowing snow reduces visibility to ten meters. In a matter of minutes, the track disappears, and we are grateful when the Cabin De Vignettes looms out of the blizzard.

During the first hour the squeak of plastic boots mixes with the hiss of skins and low conversations. Aldo sets a slow, steady pace across the silent snow fields and about the time I begin to think the pace is too slow, I realize Aldo does not stop because in his own words, "It requires more energy to start again than to continue at a slower pace."  Shortly after the sun rises over the eastern Alps, the cold ebbs from the track and I shed my jacket and search my pack’s outer pocket for sun block to protect my face from the high-altitude sun. 

Burdened with a pack and facing an eighty-mile hike in plastic ski boots, a small blister can morph into a disabling injury.  For that reason, Aldo cautions me to immediately doctor all hot spots and pressure points. 

Four miles away and twenty-five hundred feet above the Brittaniahutte, the Adler pass forces one of two decisions.  Depending on snow conditions, it can be skied, or when combinations of sun and cold turn the snow to verglas, rappelled.  From the Adler, the majority of trekkers ski down to Zermatt.  Aldo, however, traverses to the Monte Rose Hutt, from where we ski down in the shadow of the Matterhorn before continuing onto the Schonbielhutte. 

The hut keeper insists the forecast is not good. That night, a major storm roars in from the Atlantic. High winds pound at the shuttered windows, cracks in the walls shriek and at first light snow is falling at an inch an hour, visibility is down to four meters and with the threat of avalanche danger increasing by the hour, there is no hope of continuing and no sense in waiting.  Aldo advises me that we must retreat to Arolla while we still can, and reluctantly pulling on our packs, we ski down to the village.

Five days pass before the weather clears. In that time, Aldo returns to Saas Fee and I hire Jean Louis Coquoz of Verbier who leads the way back out of Arolla and over the Pas de Chevres to the Cabin De Dix.

A subculture exists on the Haute Route. Peopled by the guides, hut keepers and climbers, it is a hard if temporary life. Though most are in their twenties, the sun, cold and physical effort ages them. Now thirty-four, Jean Louis admits that even with teaching skiing and guiding in the spring and summer, he finds it difficult to make ends meet. He tells me that the best an old guide can hope for is a hut of his own and for that reason none look forward to retirement. When the rigors of the high altitude become too much, most are reduced to selling lift tickets or loading trams.

There, stopping on a groomed run above the village, I ask Jean Louis how long he figures the storm will last. 

“There’s no way to know," he replies as the snow rattles off our parkas. "Perhaps two days, maybe longer."

Jean Louis's guess proved to be prophetic. Forced to wait in Verbier as the sleet slanted down onto the forested hillsides, we finally catch the train to Argentière, France where the only open hotel is a faded, four-story relic of a more prosperous past. Webs of cracks spread across the hotel’s weathered face while the sleet finds a way through broken roof tiles.

I confess to Jean Louis that despite the ski area, bars, restaurants, bakeries and old-world architecture, Verbier is still a way station. Argentière is  the finish. “The Classic Haute Route runs from Saas Fee to Argentière. Not Saas Fee to Verbier.” I persist,

Jean Louis shakes his head and reminds me. "We cannot climb in two meters of new snow... and the avalanches are very dangerous." Lighting a cigarette and noting my disappointment, he continues, "You must not think of the Haute Route as a road between two cities. Think instead of the skiing, the hiking, the huts and the beauty of the mountains.  Then it is not so important that you cross this final pass."