Images from a great week on the classic ski tour of the alps: the Chamonix to Zermatt 'Haute Route'. There are any number of variations of this tour but increasingly the Col du Passon is taken in preference to the Col du Chardonnet on day 1 and often a detour into Verbier is taken.

I was observing alpine guide Mike 'Twid' Turner who kindly let me tag along to gain valuable aspirant log book days.

The tour is primarily in Switzerland using alpine huts on a half board basis which is an incredibly efficient way of travelling through the mountains. Prices are around 60 chf (£30ish) per night and you wont go hungry!

It's hard to quantify the difficulty of this tour (with so many variables like weather etc) but if you're fit (able to climb 1000m per day for multiple days) and can ski most snow conditions then I highly recommend it. If you are careful with route finding then you need not ski anything steeper than a 'red' run (but there are steeper variations for the adventurous)!