{"id":8132,"date":"2026-04-20T14:36:18","date_gmt":"2026-04-20T12:36:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.snowder.it\/urner-haute-route-2026-edition-with-a-surprise-ending\/"},"modified":"2026-04-20T14:36:18","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T12:36:18","slug":"urner-haute-route-2026-edition-with-a-surprise-ending","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.snowder.it\/en\/urner-haute-route-2026-edition-with-a-surprise-ending\/","title":{"rendered":"Urner Haute Route 2026 edition with a surprise ending"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Urner Haute Route is also known as The Skier’s Route,<\/strong> and it is an unforgettable adventure, especially for those seeking the essence of ski touring far from the groomed slopes. In five days, starting from Andermatt<\/strong> (the junction of the roads leading to the Alpine passes of St. Gotthard, Furka, and Oberalp) in the Canton of Uri, you reach Engelberg<\/strong>, a resort town in the Canton of Obwalden.
\nKnown for its heavy snowfall, this itinerary in the heart of the Swiss Alps offers long descents on north-facing slopes and ideal gradients, crossing glaciers and ever-changing landscapes.
\nMountain guide Adriano Ferrero presents the report and some images of this 2026 ski touring trip, carried out with a group of clients he accompanied. <\/p>\n

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Everything according to plan\u2026 until the storm arrived<\/strong><\/p>\n

The ski touring traverse, starting from the village of Realp,<\/strong> located a few kilometers upstream from Andermatt<\/strong>, ends in Engelberg.<\/strong> These are two quite famous ski resorts: the former primarily for freeride skiing, the latter for piste skiing.<\/p>\n

The itinerary crosses the Canton of Uri,<\/strong> in the heart of Alpine Switzerland<\/strong>, passing through a series of valleys that offer remarkable geological variety<\/strong> \u2013 and when the geology changes, the morphology of the mountains changes too, and consequently the environment as well. So, from granite<\/strong> rocks and landscapes reminiscent of Fitz Roy in Patagonia, you reach the Sustenhorn area (3,503 m), with gneiss<\/strong> mountains exceeding 3,600 meters surrounded by glaciers whose morphology recalls the Western Alps; after which the final part of the ski tour changes scenery again from a geological point of view, as you enter an area of limestone rocks with steep slopes and many couloirs. <\/p>\n

But let’s get to the traverse. On the first day, we start from Realp<\/strong> and, climbing for a short stretch along the road leading to the Furka Pass, we reach the Albert-Heim-H\u00fctte<\/strong> (2,542 m), a beautiful modern hut, perfectly managed, where it’s really comfortable. When we arrived, after first crossing a peak that wasn’t too high, the weather had started to turn bad. So we relaxed all afternoon and spent the evening at the table enjoying an excellent dinner. <\/p>\n

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The next morning, when we woke up, it was snowing, but the forecast predicted improving weather. So we set off from the hut, facing a fairly easy first descent; then, having reached a col, we put on our crampons, shouldered our skis, and climbed a snowy couloir to reach the summit of Lochberg<\/strong> (3,079 m), followed by a long ski down to G\u00f6scheneralpsee,<\/strong> a reservoir built in 1960 and used by the G\u00f6schenen power station.
\nFrom here, with one last climb, partly slightly technical, you reach a small old-style hut for mountaineers who don’t care too much about comfort, run by two very kind and “efficient” girls: the Chelenalph\u00fctte<\/strong> (2,350 m).<\/p>\n

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On the third day, we immediately face a technical section: with crampons on and ice axe in hand right from the hut, we climb a very steep initial stretch in a sort of couloir, then continue more gently to the Sustenlimi,<\/strong> a saddle after which we proceed uphill on the glacier to reach the “summit” of the entire tour, the Sustenhorn.<\/strong> From here, there is a very long ski down the Steingletscher<\/strong> to reach the Berghotel Steingletscher,<\/strong> at about 1,860 meters above sea level, after enjoying a 1,500-meter vertical descent, first on the glacier, then on the moraine, always on powder snow.<\/p>\n

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Our trip included two more days of traversing, but the arrival of a strong storm forced us to give up. Therefore, on the morning of the fourth day, instead of climbing the F\u00fcnffingerst\u00f6ck,<\/strong> we had to climb about 300 meters in the middle of the blizzard, cross the Susten Pass,<\/strong> a road pass that is open to car traffic in summer, and descend into the valley on the opposite side, where after a long ski and then by hitchhiking<\/strong> we arrived in Wassen,<\/strong> a village a few kilometers from Andermatt.
\nFrom here we took a taxi<\/strong> to reach Engelberg and then returned to Italy by minibus. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Urner Haute Route is also known as The Skier’s Route, and it is an unforgettable adventure, especially for those…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":7497,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"post_featured":true,"footnotes":""},"categories":[247],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reportage-en"],"read":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.snowder.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.snowder.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.snowder.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.snowder.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.snowder.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8132"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.snowder.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8132\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.snowder.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.snowder.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.snowder.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.snowder.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}