Between Chamonix and Zermatt lie two weeks, six high passes, and views of the Mont Blanc massif and the Matterhorn from opposite ends of the same walk.
I split the route into eleven stages and stayed in a mix of refuges and small village hotels, the usual compromise between the ski-touring version's mountain huts and a gentler summer itinerary. The high point is the Col de Riedmatten above Arolla, a scramble up fixed cables and scree most guidebooks undersell, followed by a long descent into a valley that feels emptied of everyone but marmots.
Cabane de Prafleuri and Cabane des Dix both sit in genuinely wild terrain, glacial and grey, a hard contrast to the flower meadows around Champex-Lac a few days earlier. The Swiss huts serve dinner at a fixed hour and expect payment in cash, so I carried more francs than felt sensible for a hiking trip.
The last two days into Zermatt trade solitude for crowds as you join day-trippers from the Gornergrat, but the payoff is real: the Matterhorn appears and reappears around every ridge for the final thirty kilometres. Go in the first half of September if you can — the passes are usually clear of new snow and the huts have thinned out from the August rush.
