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Imagine lying awake in a crowded alpine hut, surrounded by stinking socks and festering long underwear. A bearded guy three beds down snores incessantly - a phlemy mass of broken bag pipes. You hurt from head to toe, you can't move an inch, and you're happy as a clam.

Rotting socks mean nothing if you've spent the day on Europe's premier ski tour - the Haute Route. The Haute Route, or High Route, traverses from Chamonix, France to Zermatt, Switzerland. It usually takes seven to ten days to travel through 60 miles of the most stunning scenery in the world - ancient glaciers, breathtaking mountain passes, and 14,000-foot peaks in every direction.

As the most revered ski tour in the Alps, the Haute Route is the lifelong dream of fanatical off-piste skiers everywhere. Most everyday powder hounds, however, think of the Haute Route as strictly an elitist affair - made for expert backcountry skiers or thrill-seeking rich guys. Not so, as Backcountry.com's Dustin Robertson discovered last spring. Nearly anyone can ski the Haute Route.

Dustin and seven others traversed the Haute Route with three guides from Mountain Tracks, a team of mountain professionals who specialize in guided alpine adventures. Mountain Tracks' all-inclusive eight-day trip will set you back roughly $1600. For $200/day - meals, accommodation, and a guided trip through gnarly terrain that could kill in a heartbeat - that's not half bad. Not to mention you're surrounded by the priceless scenery of the Alps.

The route starts under the shadow of Mont Blanc, the highest peak in Western Europe, and ends with a panorama of the Matterhorn. Before you set out, the experts at Mountain Tracks test everyone's backcountry ability with a day ski tour to a high alpine pass. Robertson dubbed this saddle the "Cul de Filter" as it filtered those who couldn't hang. Luckily for the group, everyone passed - including the 70-year-old who organized the trip and a 65-year-old-woman who was relatively new to ski touring.

This is not to say that the Haute Route is a walk in the park, fit for any couch potato with cash. You have to be in good shape, a decent skier, and able to endure hours of relentless touring. The journey takes you through tricky, crevasse-ridden, and avalanche-prone terrain with numerous 2000ft+ vertical climbs. And then there are the descents. As Robertson recalls:

At one point the guides made an anchor and threw a rope down a couloir - an icy 60-degree chute barely wide enough for skis. They told me to use both hands and hold on tight with the rope behind my back. "Slide down the rope. You must go fast." Down I went. Luckily I was wearing gloves with leather palms because the slide nearly ripped holes in them. It was crazy.

A couple days later, the group had to climb down an old, rickety 300-foot ladder. Not an easy task with AT boots and your skis on your back. Gotta love that Euro ingenuity.

All this aside, the Haute Route takes you through some of the most awe-inspiring mountains in the world, and it provides a uniquely European experience. It's not uncommon to ski 4000 vertical feet of beautiful snow down to an ancient hamlet in the Swiss Alps, where fine wine, a warm fire, and a one-of-a-kind atmosphere awaits.

Airfare to Europe is cheap in winter, so scope out your backcountry gear, get in shape, and start planning for an epic trip. But before you hop on a transatlantic flight, we have a few tips.

Get your gear dialed

Robertson created a complete gear list of what you'll need on the Haute Route. Check it out at: Haute Gear. Click through this link, buy any product on the list, and we'll give you 10% off your purchase.
If you forget something or can't buy all your gear beforehand, you can always rent from Mountain Tracks.

Decide how you want to do the Haute Route

When you get to France, you have three options regarding the Haute Route:

We don't recommend this unless you have many years experience in the backcountry and are an expert in navigating over glacial terrain. You must be familiar with the avalanche-prone French and Swiss Alps and with the perils of traveling through a high alpine environment. You must also be fluent in French. If you're lucky enough to meet these requirements, call up your expert ski buddies and skin up in Chamonix.

If you're not an expert-backcountry-French-speaking-glacier-extraordinaire, you can always just arrange a tour with Mountain Tracks. The fact that Dustin's hodge-podge group completed the Haute Route in one piece is testament to the tremendous experience of the guides. The leader, a Frenchman named Remy Lecluse, deftly navigated through the life-threatening terrain and made it relatively easy (but not painless) for the group to make it to Zermatt. This is a good option if your group has a wide range of ski abilities - you won't ski the craziest lines, but you'll live to tell the tale.

If you can get five or six expert skiing buddies together (who are willing to fork over some cash), you can hire one of Mountain Tracks' guides and do an extreme version of the Haute Route. The French and Swiss Alps are home to some of the world's gnarliest terrain, and with the proper guide and proper group you could spend 10 days skiing the sickest lines. Thousands and thousands of vert. Ridiculous chutes, flutes, and drops. Mind-blowing powder.