Ski tour: the Uri Haute Route

Thomas has a screw loose. Or rather, a screw missing. On the train to Realp he noticed that a buckle on his ski boot had come loose. He must have lost the screw during our sprint to the platform in Lucerne. Now he’s standing in the cellar of the Albert-Heim-Hütte cabin and Roman, the cabin manager, is rummaging through a few boxes. ‘See if any of these fit,’ he says and places a small selection of screws on the workbench. Luckily, Roman keeps a well-stocked workshop at his cabin, otherwise Thomas would have had to ski with undone boots for the following few days. Perhaps not a problem on the ascent, but on the descent it would have been challenging to say the least. That’s because we’re on the Uri Haute Route, a five-day Alpine ski tour from Realp to Engelberg, which is known for its excellent downhill stretches.

A ski tour into the unknown

In contrast to other ski crossings, such as the classic Haute Route from Chamonix to Zermatt, there are still days on this tour when you’re completely alone, even in the high season. That’s why we started during the week. Although the relatively accessible Albert-Heim-Hütte is busy in the evening, the next morning a there are just six of us setting off in the direction of Lochberg and the crossing to Göscheneralpsee.

The great thing about crossings is that they’re always a little journey into the unknown. There’s a start point and a destination. In between, you bounce from cabin to cabin through the mountains. You go up one side of the mountain and down again on the other side. So there’s basically always new territory ahead of you. Even if you already know the route, you never know exactly what the snow conditions will be like or where the crevasses will be open. Today we’re wondering whether the ice surface of the Göscheneralpsee reservoir will support us. It probably won’t, so we’ll have to take the longer route around the water’s edge to the Chelenalphütte cabin.

Apart from us, the only people at the cabin today are a French mountain guide instructor from Chamonix and his wife. We reach the cabin in the early afternoon, but hardly anyone else will be joining us. With the spring sunshine, the approach is quickly threatened by wet snow avalanches. In the meantime, we are sitting safely on the cabin terrace and studying the routes that we could climb on the slopes of the Schneestock facing us. In the evening, cabin manager Remo conjures up a meal for the four of us from whatever the larder has to offer. He and his father-in-law had only climbed up a few hours before us and were looking forward to the days ahead. The hut is only open for a short time in spring for ski tourers on the Uri Haute Route.

A blip in the weather conditions is forecast for the next day, so we’re glad when there are no clouds in sight in the morning. The Sustenhorn is on the programme for today; it’s the highest peak on the Uri Haute Route and a popular ski mountaineering destination from the Susten Pass road. The descent from the summit isn’t difficult, but it does lead over the Stein Glacier, and we don’t want to have to navigate between the crevasses in the fog. Down at the Hotel Steingletscher, there’s a brief reprieve from solitude for the night. The popular alpine base is easy to reach on skis from the Gadmertal valley via the pass road in spring. We even have the luxury of a hot shower here.

The very next morning we’re on our own again and we head up to the Fünffingerstöck, a mountain named for its five ‘fingers’. We have to hurry: the descent to Sustenbrüggli gets sun early and is already well covered with firn. There are only four of us at the Sustlihütte cabin that evening. The French couple left yesterday after the Sustenhorn in the direction of the Trifthütte cabin, replaced by a mountain guide from Engelberg and his guest. We’re all sitting at the same table, and the cabin managers Agi and Kari are also joining us for dinner. But on the route from Chamonix to Zermatt, there would be so many people in the huts that they’d be eating in shifts and sleeping in layers.

Long descent to Engelberg

We’ve already seen the impressive south face of the Titlis from the Fünffingerstöck, but the next day we can practically touch Engelberg’s local mountain. Another long descent dropping almost 1,800 metres’ altitude lies ahead of us. From the summit of the Grassen we pass the bivouac hut of the same name (with its own stock of wine!) and continue over the Firnalpeli Glacier towards the Engelberg valley. At some point down in the forest, the snow thins out and we have to carry our skis for the last few metres. At the train station in Engelberg, we finish with a refreshing Rivella in the sun – and the new screw on Thomas’s ski boot is still holding up.