Hut-to-hut treks for experienced mountain walkers
Routes that assume you are steady on exposed ground, comfortable with long days, and able to turn back. Several cross glaciers or protected climbing sections.
Alta Via 2
The harder, wilder Dolomite high route from Bressanone to Feltre, through the Puez, the Sella, the Marmolada and the Pale di San Martino.
Italy · ~160 km · 12–14 days · 48 shelters along the way
Walker's Haute Route
Chamonix to Zermatt on foot, from Mont Blanc to the Matterhorn over eleven passes, without touching a glacier.
France, Switzerland · ~180 km · 12–14 days · 34 shelters along the way
Tour of Monte Rosa
A loop around the second-highest massif in the Alps, Swiss and Italian sides, with one glacier crossing at the Theodul.
Switzerland, Italy · ~163 km · 9–10 days · 32 shelters along the way
Stubai Höhenweg
Eight Alpine Club huts in a horseshoe above the Stubai valley, an hour from Innsbruck, with a bed and a warm meal every single night.
Austria · ~80 km · 7–8 days · 7 shelters along the way
GR20
The length of Corsica along its granite spine, refuge to refuge for two weeks, with a reputation as the toughest waymarked trail in Europe.
France · ~180 km · 15–16 days · 28 shelters along the way
GR54, Tour des Écrins
The circuit of the Écrins massif, the quiet cousin of the Tour du Mont Blanc: harder, emptier, and with more ascent than any other route here.
France · ~176 km · 12–13 days · 31 shelters along the way
Other levels
The level is our reading of the whole route, not a published grade: no scale grades a week of walking. Where a route page states a T-grade, that comes from paths tagged in OpenStreetMap around the stage points, and describes the terrain there rather than the exact line the route takes.