Pippa Middleton's Alpine diary

I thought the Haute Route was going to be easier than the Engadin, the cross-country ski marathon I recently completed in St Moritz. I was very wrong. It was sold to me as an 180km ski-touring trek from Chamonix to Zermatt. I imagined lovely powder skiing in bubbly snow, floating down unmarked tracks under blissful blue skies, with the odd sighting of chamois. The reality was a five-day, mostly uphill trek through patchy cloud with a heavy rucksack on my back. In my case, a rucksack the size of my torso and almost half my weight. But I loved it really.

What made my rucksack so heavy? Well, I had to pack my Cheltenham fur hat, various other bits of clothing that PR people have sent me, and several signed copies of my book Celebrate. No, not really. In fact, it was mostly taken up with various crampons, a harness with karabiner, avalanche probes, snow shovel, ski skins, and the all-important under-thermals.