Backcountry Skiing and Mountaineering Experience
The skills and experience needed here are dependent on whether you are going on a guided Haute Route ski tour or tackling it on your own. For a guided ski tour you need to have experience using skins on steep and sometimes hard pack snow. You should also have had many backcountry ski days under your belt and possibly a previous multi-day ski tour. Overall, you need to have your equipment and systems dialed. As for mountaineering experience, not much is needed here if you are going with a guide as the guide’s expertise can make up for much of that and they will teach you the techniques you’ll need to know. The mountaineering done on the Haute Route is at a beginner level.
Moving beyond a guided ski tour and the level of experience and skills goes up considerably. For an unguided Haute Route tour, you should have many years of backcountry skiing experience and have been on numerous multi-day ski tours. Experience skiing and traveling on glaciers is a must. You must be proficient in crevasse rescue techniques with skis and have had experience on steep snow climbs (up to 45 degrees) using ice axe and crampons. The high alpine terrain of the Haute Route is no place to be figuring these things out.
Also, do not underestimate the navigation skills required if tackling it on your own. It is easy to get complacent when you’re simply following the track in front of you for days until very suddenly you find yourself in a whiteout and the track has disappeared. You must be prepared with a whiteout navigation plan and be very skilled in using GPS, map, compass and altimeter for navigating. Putting together a written trip plan, such as is taught in avalanche courses, is important.
And then there’s avalanche training. The absolute minimum would be everyone in the group having taken a level-one avalanche course with level two being more appropriate. You must have the ability to evaluate the snowpack and the weather to make sound judgment calls. Keep in mind that the snow stability issues you may face in the Swiss Alps can be very different than what you have seen in your home range. Once again, this is not required for those on a guided ski tour.
Skiing your first Alps ski tour with a certified ski guide is an excellent way to gain the experience to ski tour in the Alps on your own.