Walker's Haute Route

Walk between two of the greatest mountaineering centres in the world, Chamonix and Zermatt. Walk amongst the great 4000m peaks in the Alps. The tour is more demanding than the well-known Tour du Mont Blanc but does cover some of the same days when leaving Chamonix.

How long is the Walker's Haute Route (WHR)? The complete route is around 201km. We recommend taking 13 days to walk the route, but if you do not have that length of time, we offer the East or West section, and if you want to take a little more time to do it, we can add in suitable rest days. Whatever your desire, Macs Adventure can sort out the perfect WHR for you. 

The time of year is all-important, and the route is at a high altitude, so snow is an issue. Therefore we only operate the trip between mid-July and mid-September and keep a constant eye on the conditions to get our customers out walking as soon as it is safe to do so.

How high does the Walker's Haute Route go? The highest points on the official route are the Col de Riedmatten which sits at 2919m and the Augustbordpass (2894m), but there are alternative walks that take you equally as high, such as, Forceletta (2874m), Col de Sorebois (2847m) and the impressive Tete Noir (2981m). On the trip, you will gain around 10,600m which is a good bit higher than Mt Everest. However, don't let this put you off. It is a lot more straightforward, safer, and more fun than climbing Mt Everest.  

Most challenging sections

The Walker's Haute route is a visually spectacular trail, but it has many exposed sections that have been safeguarded with fixed rope handrails. On several occasions, the way crosses rockfall areas, and warning signs have been set to urge walkers to walk quickly past these sections.

• Trient to Champex - The descent from Fenetre d’Arpette to Champex is a skree descent.
• Cabane Mont Fort to Cabane de Prafleuri - Col de Louvie and the Col de Prafleuri, where you cross large areas of rocks and boulders
• Cabane de Prafleuri to Arolla – Crossing the Col de Riedmatten, the highest section of the trip
• Europahutte to Zermatt - The final leg into Zermatt, along the Europaweg, is commonly affected by rockfall.

Macs Adventure has been running self-guided walking holidays in Swizterland since 2008.  Whether you like mountains and hills, lakes, rivers and glaciers, dreamy villages and well preserved medieval cities, Switzerland has something to offer for everyone. This abundance of wonderful places to explore lead us to seek out more and more areas where we could help people to discover Switzerland on foot. 

From humble beginnings, we now send over 2000 walkers to Switzerland every year, each walking the route that excites them the most. We provide the freedom to choose your route, itinerary and travel companions and discover Switzerland at your own pace. 

We know how daunting it can be, setting off on an adventure of this scale and we quickly realised how important it was to have amazing partners on the ground in Switzerland to deal with any issues that you might come across.  We are proud to say that we work incredibly closely with all our accommodation suppliers and luggage transfer teams and should you have the slightest issue, they will fall over themselves to help you out. 

We offer a flexible, tailor-made hiking experience that gets you in comfortable, friendly overnight accommodation in local B&Bs and guesthouses. We carry your bags to lighten your load so you can concentrate on simply putting one foot in front of the other and enjoying the unique culture, food and scenery of Switzerland. No hostels, no leaky tents, no heavy bags on your back just a straightforward active holiday that you can book with confidence that we have it all covered for you. 

We want to showcase our expertise, by giving you all the resources you will ever need.  In the planning stage, we have free guides, comprehensive videos and a host of staff with their own Swiss experiences, waiting to answer your questions. On the route, we use high-quality digital mapping as well as the best maps and guidebooks to make sure you find your way.  

We love the diversity of walking in Switzerland and our main aim is to make sure that you do too.