Hiking the Haute Route in Switzerland (100 miles in 9 days)

Yeah, no, that was hilarious. What's a Diablo? I had a Diablo growing up. Did you actually? This is a cool shot with the flyswatter. That's funny also. One of the bigger hotels had like a waiting line. Two. Oh, yeah. Thinking about getting one. That was not a full head there. He's just out of frame. He's not going to make the video. That's not bad. Yeah, it's not bad. I'm just dipping my calves in the hot tub. Yeah, put your whole body in it. Very good. There's a view. Definitely river crossing. That's a proper river crossing. Oh, it's a game. Oh, I thought it was like a pizza. It's so good. Edit it if you want. Oh, yeah. Okay. Hello. Craig Adams here. It's October 1st, 2025. I'm back in New York City. A good amount of time after shooting and hiking 100 miles on the route in Switzerland. Let's talk about this trip. How I shot this video. How I found the trail and the experience itself. I also have my Strava and all trails activities. So you can see exactly where I went. How fast I went. In case you're thinking about doing the trail yourself. I also have some updates about my life and the channel. It's been a while. It's been a few months since Kyrgyzstan. So we have lots to talk about. This was not a solo hike. It was a group trip. And I sold tickets early on in the year. And through the spring. I think we had 10, 11, maybe 12 ticketed subscribers. Who signed up whenever I posted on Instagram or YouTube about it. The company that planned it and did everything is Vagabond Trails. And this is the fourth time I believe I've worked with them. Hiking and trail running different places around the world. And they're fantastic. They're my favorite. So I hope to continue to use them. And this trip was super fun and flawless with their help. This group was amazing. We had fun. I felt like everyone really became friends. We had a big mix of different people with different experiences. But we all completed the trail. And if you want to sign up. I will be posting about new trips in the future on Instagram stories. Maybe an Instagram post or a reel. Why did I pick this route? I knew about the trail. And I had it on my list of what I wanted to hike and shoot a video about. But it was Veronica who proposed doing a group trip. And the Swiss Alps is kind of where they mostly operate. So I trusted her to make a good itinerary. And to manage this trip for me. It starts in Chamonix. A place that I've already hiked and been. But it goes through a new selection of mountains to Zermatt. Also a place where I've been. So even though I've been to both of the starting and finishing destinations. It was a new selection of huts and mountains and views to see between the two. Depending on the season. It's mostly temperate during the day. Maybe a little hot. And then at the huts you're inside. So you're not cold in a tent. So it's definitely more comfortable and bougie. With the temperature. As well as obviously the food. You can buy beer and desserts and food all along the way. And for this trail we actually separated. I think maybe two or three little tiny sections through the town. By jumping in a shuttle bus. Or taking a public bus to our hotel at the end of the day. Which was fine. Usually I'm a completionist. I like to do a trail from point A to point B on foot. But these little detours with the taxis actually made sense. I think most people could do this trail. There were some big passes and some big days. But obviously you can add days or take away days. Depending on your experience level. With the Hut to Hut. With reservations. You don't have to pack much. There's safety with the huts. The temperatures are good with the huts. Once we exited the Tour de Mont Blanc area. The trail got a lot quieter. Which was nice. But it was also very fun to get to run into a bunch of subscribers. Who were doing the Tour de Mont Blanc and wanted to say hello. So thank you for saying hi on trail. Other than the very first day which had some rain and mostly clouds. All of the other days were crystal clear, perfect, beautiful days. So it was nice having great weather. I did this hike in August. And you can see with the activity recordings on Strava and AllTrails. The exact days that I did the different passes and stayed at the different huts. I've been in that tri-country area of the Alps a lot. Like Italy, France, and Switzerland. And I think it might have been my 6th or 7th time there. So it was cool hiking past the Dents du Midi. Which I did years ago. You could see the teeth from this new perspective pretty well. My one gripe on this trail is that I don't think any of the huts had dogs. Which isn't cool. But there was one cat that was hanging out around day 3 or 4. As far as gear, it was very light and easy and nice. With Hut2Hut, I definitely had a lighter pack. I didn't have to have the tent or the jet boil. Or a lot of my sleeping things. I just had the extra weight of the drone batteries and camera. And then some clothes and of course Crocs. Which is definitely a must if you're doing Hut2Hut in the Alps. But I will link all of these things that I used on this trail. And to shoot this video in the description if you want to check out those affiliate links. One of the highlights for me was staying up at Cabin du Maurier. It was high up, not that big. Beautiful with big glass windows. Because it had glacier all around it. An amazing view, sunrise, sunset. It was cool to stay up there. And I'm glad that we had a reservation and didn't just bypass it. Because it's kind of a little out of the way up the hill. With it being Switzerland, there was cheese. This trail and these huts did not disappoint when it came to dairy products. Cheese, yogurt, sausages. All of the good farm foods. You'll definitely get plenty of that here. I shot this video on a new camera. It's kind of a slimmed down minimal version of the Sony A7S Mark III that I had before. I think it's called the Sony ZV-E1. I don't know. But same lens, 16-35mm f4. And then there's like an onboard microphone on this new camera. So I just shot with the onboard mic. My Senshi design hoodie was great to have on trail. And so cozy. Still in love with it. At the end we reached Zermatt. And by then I was kind of burnt out. So there's like one or two shots of Matterhorn and the city. But I was just ready to relax and kind of reset my mind for the next trip that would be right after that. I was actually flying directly to Pakistan from Switzerland to start my two week long K2 base camp trek. Which is the next video that I'm going to upload on YouTube. I'm excited to start editing that once I publish this video here. And it doesn't stop there. After K2 I came home but then went back to Europe to hike in the Italian Dolomites. To hike the Alta Via 1. And that was also a long trek. A week long. So three big videos back to back to back. I'm excited to edit them. I think they're fantastic flagship silent hiking videos with guides. Back to the basics. You know, why people subscribe in the first place. What my bread and butter is. I'm happy to have a lot of effort put into these three videos. So I'm curious to know what you think. But this is part of my bigger plan overall with social media. To eliminate distractions. You may have noticed I got rid of a couple things. But that just means I'm putting more effort and more focus into the big flagship hiking videos. Instagram posts. Reels across YouTube Shorts. IG Reels. And TikTok. And my focus is to do what I know best. And to kind of raise the quality a little bit. By lowering the quantity slightly. And not doing things that might be seen as distractions. Like the podcast. Or, I don't know, just consuming social media in general. I'm looking to put way more effort into any ads that I do. So that those are a little bit more enjoyable. And overall I just want to increase your trust with me. Like, if I post something you know it's a high quality. It is what you expect it to be. And yeah, the last three treks were a little difficult. I was away from home for a long time. Especially, you know, my son Dean is between one and two. It's a really special time. So fun hanging out with him here and going on little road trips. And I just can't wait to spend more time with Mika, my wife, Dean, and Sasha. My little family here in Brooklyn. This fall, winter, and spring. My daily routine is mostly taking care of Sasha and Dean and Mika. Cooking, going for walks here. Finding nice food. Going to parks. Playing with Dean. It's so fun teaching him things. He's learning a lot of words. He's just exploring the world and playing more. It's just, it's really fun to be a dad. I'll be spending a lot of time in the U.S. over the next six months. Because I want to be with my family. But also I just signed the biggest deal of my career with a car company. So I will be making some content around trips with that car. And I think it's actually a cool opportunity for me to stay close to home. But also find cool things to do around here and with my family. Coming up very soon, a little too soon, is the New York City Marathon. I'm signed up and will be running in that in November. So if you're in the area on race day, I will be somewhere among the masses. I won't be going fast, but I am excited to complete it. And I need to start training ASAP. At the end of October, I will be flying to Colorado for a couple days. Because of the Outdoor Media Summit. And I will be speaking at this conference for outdoor media people and brands. It'll be fun to see Colorado again, to get out. And it might be cool to do some speaking and professional networking. And all of those things associated with that. These past few weeks, I've been shooting camera tests and researching a lot about Apple ProRes. So this is a different format that you can shoot on the iPhone. And the new one that just came out has Apple ProRes RAW. And this is what I probably should have been doing whenever I shot iPhone video. And I like the look of it. I like the workflow. And when you get a hard drive for recording, it gives you a lot more time. A microphone on top, some kind of slight cage. For the iPhone, you can mount it easy. And to be honest, I don't hear much from Sony these days. I used to be invited to their events and get early product releases. And work with them a bit on videos. But it's kind of crickets at this point. So I did my project with Apple. The team over there is fantastic. So I have a lot of incentive and interest in shifting my filmmaking to iPhone only. So that'll do it. This is the best place for me to field questions. So leave any comment and I'll get to you. But thank you so much for watching. And I'll see you on the next video. Bye.