Small-group trekking outfitter · Alps — Pyrenees — Atlas
Eight walkers. One leader who has slept on the route.
Distances printed honestly, in kilometres and in blisters.
SHEET 01 — FIELD NOTE · WHY WE WALK
A coach tour shows you a mountain. A trek makes the mountain show you yourself — usually somewhere around the second pass, when the weather turns and somebody starts singing. We keep groups to eight because that is the number a single rope of conversation can hold. We publish real ascent figures because your knees will audit them anyway. And we still carry paper maps, because batteries are opinions and contour lines are facts.
— Isla Ferrand & Marc Duval, founders · logged at Refuge des Grands, 2,113 m
SHEET 02 — ROUTE LOG
Chamonix basin to the Val d'Hérens. Six days, 88 kilometres, five cols. Scroll: the trail draws itself and the profile fills in — the same way the real one does, one boot at a time.
12 km+780 m−900 mCol de Balme · 2,191 m
We start under the lift lines and lose them inside an hour. Col de Balme is the front door of the whole route: France at your back, the Trient basin opening below like a held breath. First night in the village auberge — the last mattress with springs for three days.
16 km+1,320 m−1,250 mFenêtre d'Arpette · 2,665 m
The Fenêtre is the day everyone remembers. The upper valley is boulders the size of delivery vans; hands come out of pockets and stay out. At the notch, the Trient glacier hangs across the gap — close enough to hear it settle. Long, careful descent to a lake the colour of bottle glass.
15 km+1,650 m−660 mCabane · 2,457 m
A balcony day. The path follows old irrigation channels — bisses — cut into the hillside by people who measured water in prayers. Verbier appears and is politely ignored. The cabane serves rösti at altitude; sunset does the rest of the talking.
17 km+1,110 m−950 mCol de Prafleuri · 2,965 m
The wildest hours of the traverse. Three cols, no villages, one landscape they call the Grand Désert — slabs, moraine, and meltwater the maps don't bother naming. Ibex watch us cross like we're the entertainment. Highest point of the week just before the hut.
18 km+820 m−1,440 mCol de Riedmatten · 2,919 m
The longest day, walked beside the six-kilometre mirror of Lac des Dix. Riedmatten is a steep scree gully with a rhythm to it — short steps, loose stones, big grin at the top. Then larches, then pastures, then Arolla and the first hot shower since Tuesday.
10 km+250 m−760 mFinish · 1,667 m
A short, generous morning to let the week land. Blue chairs outside the café in La Sage; boots off, socks steaming, nobody checking a phone. Someone always asks what next year's route is. That question is how Wanderline stays in business.
SHEET 03 — THE SEASON'S THREE
We run each route at most five times a season, led by people who have walked it in bad weather. Grades below; if in doubt, ring us and describe your last long walk honestly.
SWISS ALPS · VALAIS
The route logged above. Five cols between Chamonix's shadow and the Val d'Hérens, huts and one auberge, hands-on scrambling at the Fenêtre d'Arpette.
6 days88 kmmax 8
€1,480 · huts, meals & leader included
PYRENEES · ARIÈGE
Five days on the old transhumance paths above the Couserans — granite lakes, semi-wild horses, and estives where cheese is still an argument settled by altitude.
5 days64 kmmax 8
€1,120 · gîtes, meals & leader included
HIGH ATLAS · MOROCCO
A mule-supported circuit of the Toubkal massif: walnut-grove villages, the Tizi n'Ouanoums at 3,664 m, and mint tea that tastes like a summit certificate.
6 days71 kmmax 10
€1,240 · camps, cook & leader included
HOW WE GRADE
SHEET 04 — KIT LIST
Our packing philosophy is a customs inspection in reverse: we are trying to take things away from you. The full list arrives with your booking; the load-bearing truths are below.
Group kit — first-aid, sat-comms, rope for graded sections, and the emergency chocolate — is carried by your leader. The chocolate is not a metaphor.
SHEET 05 — TRIP ENQUIRY
No deposit, no automated reply. A route note comes back within 48 hours, written by someone who has walked the trail you're asking about.