Chalet du Soldat is located near the Jaunpass which is a favourite local area of mine. It’s basically pre-alpes and not far from Gstaad and close by La Berra where we were at the weekend. Today I was on my own and I was interested to go and see the Chalet du Soldat. The chalet used to be called the chalet du Régiment until 2007 when they changed the name to Chalet du Soldat.

The original chalet was built in 1945 by the “Régiment d’Infanterie 7″, a unit of the Swiss Army, and originally called “Chalet du Soldat de Fribourg” before changing to “chalet du Régiment” in 1952. There’s an interesting history in French on the internet, L’histoire du Chalet du Soldat.

The chalet is open weekends in the winter with accommodation and in the summer, right now it’s closed until June 1st so I’m expecting it to be nice and quiet. My plan is to walk up there and have a picnic lunch outside the chalet.


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The weather didn’t actually look very promising on Sunday but since I’d got a new pair of boots (some Raichle Mountain Trail GTX) I wanted to get out and try the boots. I’d been interested for a while in walking the ridge at La Berra, it’s a local ski station although I’ve not skied there for a couple of seasons, but the ridge dominates the local landscape and marks the start of the alpes as you travel East from the Jura.

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Here we are, day four at a fairly leisurely 0500 start and hitting the hill at 0615. The night was spent in the Tracuit Hut which at 3270m is fairly high, the hut was pretty busy probably due to such superb conditions.

So far the tour has just been extraordinary, the best trip I’ve made this year really and that’s due in large part to the guide Fredy Tscherrig who set the trip up, his knowledge of the area is just stunning and his passion for it is obvious.

For me today is the point of the trip, in some ways the point of the season and probably of life itself! I’ve spent the season skiing in the Val d’Anniviers and one of the reasons I actually ski tour is to explore more of the valley. Now we are at 3270m high up in the Anniviers, three days into the trip and ready to make an ascent of he Bishorn at 4153m. The Bishorn is a “ski 4000″ so we’re going to be able to make all but the last few metres on skis.

I used Adobe LightRoom to make a web slideshow of the whole trip, view slideshow here.


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This was going to be a long day, the aim was to travel to the Cabane de Tracuit which looks a pretty long way on the map. Another early start at 0400hr and we’re away from the the cabane du Mountet a little after 0430hrs lighting the way by head torches until fixing skins and starting the first ascent.

photo : some of the group climbing the Blanc de Moming with the Dent Blanche in the centre background.
 

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