Zermatt Judith went to France for a week for an Open University French course, so I took the opportunity to go to my (currently) favourite place in the world - Zermatt - to attempt some of the more arduous hikes that I wouldn’t normally get to try when I had Judith in tow.I also took my parents along as a) they’d not seen the Alps from ground level, and b) it might have been a bit boring being in Zermatt all on my own for a week.
Weiss Beer Saturday - Early start to drive to Portsmouth to drop Judith off for the ferry to Caen. Then back to Fleet to pick up my parents, then off to Heathrow to get our flight to Geneva. It was a relief to finally get on the train at Geneva Airport and be able to relax and look at the scenery for a few hours.We arrived at our hotel in Zermatt in the early evening, just in time to have a beer and a bite to eat before turning in after a long day of travelling.
Edelweiss Sunday - As the sun was out, we decided to head straight for Klein Matterhorn, the highest view point in the area. This is a view across Zermatt to Edelweiss, up on the mountainside in the distance.
Klein Matterhorn We got the Matterhorn Express cable car from Zermatt, up to Trockener Steg, then switched to this cable car for the final leg up to Klein Matterhorn, which is the peak on the right in the photo (where the cables are going to). The mountain on the left is Breithorn.
Matterhorn The views from the top were pretty good.
Glacier Paradise Having left the view point, we got the lift down to the Glacier Paradise, which is a series of tunnels that have been dug into the glacier. This is a photo of the entrance.
Sculpture There were a number of ice sculptures in the Glacier Paradise. Obviously they didn't thaw out as we were in an ice tunnel in a glacier, so it was bloomin' freezing.
Matterhorn Having left Klein Matterhorn, we got the cable car back down to Trockener Steg, where my walk for the day was starting. While we were there we thought we'd best get a few photos of the Matterhorn in as it's one of the best places to see it from.
Matterhorn A passing tourist fellow offered to take a photo of the three of us (because he wanted me to take one of him and his pal). Turned out nice.Having taken a few photos, I waved goodbye to my parents and headed off on my walk.
Walking The walk I'd planned was across this rocky wasteland to the cable car station at Schwarzsee. There would be increasingly fabulous views of the East (?) face of the Matterhorn all the way.
Markers As the walk was across a rocky wasteland, there was no path to follow as such. So navigation was via these red-and-white painted stripes on the rocks. When you find one, the lines (usually) point in the direction of the next marker. Clever.
Helicopter As I was walking, a sightseeing helicopter circled the top of the Matterhorn, giving a little bit of perspective as to how big the mountain is. You can just make it out towards the top right of the photo.
Hornlihutte There were also excellent views of the Hornlihutte, where I was hoping to walk to later in the week. You can just make it out here, right in the middle of the photo.
View Looking back where I'd come from, I was presented with a fabulous mountain vista. The small, dark peak just to the right of the centre is Klein Matterhorn, where I was a couple of hours earlier.
Schwarzee Eventually Schwarzsee came into view (in the foreground on the right), with Zermatt visible in the distance.As it was still relatively early I decided to walk down from Schwarzsee to the next cable car station at Furi, where I met up with my parents again.
Zermatt A short while later we were back in Zermatt.
Hotel Julien This is a photo of the fabulous display of flowers at the Hotel Julien.
Matterhorn A last look at the Matterhorn today in the low evening sun.
Gornergrat Monday - The weather was still nice, so we decided to head to Gornergrat. This is a nice view of the Matterhorn and the train that brought us up here.
Glaciers My parents with the Thoedulgletscher (amongst others) in the background.
Clouds Parents with clouds and mountains.
Things to Come Gornergrat offered a very good view of the walk I was planning to do the next day.On the left you can just make out the cable car station at Rothorn, which is where the trail starts. The dark mountain on the right, Oberrothorn, would be my destination. It is apparently the highest peak in Europe that is accessible without the assistance of a mountain guide, which is particularly impressive given that it's not much to look at.
Train The classic shot of the Gornergrat train with the Matterhorn in the background. It wouldn't be right to come here and not take this shot, even though I've already probably got a dozen just like it from previous visits.
Riffelberg We got the train back down to Riffelberg for a bit of a look around. There was a very nice view from the terrace of the hotel/restaurant.We got the train back to Zermatt and had some lunch, after which I headed off for my walk of the day.
Edelweiss The first stage was to walk the 341m from Zermatt up to Edelweiss, which I'd done loads of times before. This was the view of Zermatt from Edelweiss.
Valley The second stage of the walk was to continue up the valley to Trift, ascending another 376m. Soon I started to get tantalising glimpses of the mountains and glaciers in the distance. The path was pretty steep, but fairly easy going.
Trift This was my first view of the hotel at Trift, with the Triftgletscher in the background.
Trift View I pressed on past Trift and continued ascending. Fifteen minutes later and the hotel at Trift was barely visible. You can just make it out just to the right of the centre of this photo.
Matterhorn Eventually the path leveled out and I got my first (partial) view of the Matterhorn, which was largely obscured by the clouds.
Path Half-an-hour later I reached a fork in the path. I could carry on walking at this level towards the Schonbielhutte, which would eventually take me back to Zermatt in three to four hours, or I could head straight down the mountainside and be back in Zermatt in an indicated one hour and forty five minutes.
Bench Handily there was a bench to sit on and admire the fantastic view and enjoy the complete peace and quiet while I had a think about it. I hadn't seen any other walkers for ages (the trail guide did say that the path would be very quiet after Trift).
Down Straight down then. You can see the path zig-zagging down the mountainside, with Zermatt just visible in the distance.
Flower As I descended, the mainly grassy landscape gradually transformed into an Alpine meadow, so I stopped to take photos of some of the flowers. If you're not at all interested in flowers, you're probably going to want to skip over the next few photos.
Flower A blue flower.
Flower A purple flower.
Flower Ah, now maybe that's also purple flower? So what colour does that make the previous one then? I also seem to have accidentally snapped some sort of insect there.
Edelweiss A while later I reached Edelweiss again. It was then only a short (albeit steep) walk back to Zermatt for a well earned beer and some dinner.
Rothorn Tuesday - The weather was still pretty nice, although there was a lot of cloud around today and the Matterhorn was hidden. We got the funicular/cable car up to Rothorn, where I was starting the day's walk.This is my parents with the Findelgletscher in the background.
Oberrothorn It was still pretty early, but these keen walkers had already made it to the top of Oberrothorn.
Oberrothorn If I zoom out, you can see the whole thing. From here it just looked like a big, muddy hill. The peak was only 312m above where I was standing. Unfortunately, just to make it a bit harder, the first bit of the trail descended for around 100m before the uphill bit started.
Trail This photo shows how busy this trail was. I passed dozens of people on the way up/down. I think many people are lulled into a false sense of security because it's a relatively short trail. However, it's steep and rocky and a lot of people looked like they were finding it very hard going. I know I was.It was around this time that I became a partial convert to the use of walking poles. I'd brought one with me (the one I bought Judith that she's never used), just to see. I was surprised at how useful it was for balance on steep rocky ascents and descents. It would certainly have been much harder getting up Oberrothorn without it. However, at no point did I find myself wishing I had two poles and it was more hindrance than help on the gentle gradients and flat bits.The Rothorn cable car station is visible on the hill on the right. The Matterhorn should have been visible just to the right of it, but it was still obscured by cloud.
Cliff Approaching the summit, I got my first view of the side of Oberrothorn that you can't see from the Rothorn cable car station. Whilst the other side looks like a big, muddy hill, this side was a near vertical cliff face over 300m tall.As the path regularly comes close to the edge, I could see why the trail guide strongly advises that this trail should not be attempted if visibility is poor.You can just about make out some walkers at the summit in this photo.
Tourists As I approached the summit I passed this group of Japanese tourists just starting their descent. The Rothorn cablecar station is visible on the left.
Summit Finally I reached the 3,414m summit. I got a tiny glimpse of the Matterhorn through a gap in the clouds. I would definitely need to come up here again on a clear day.
Mars I'd brought some mini-Mars to snack on. The wrappers had inflated in the low air pressure. How I laughed.
Flowers On the way down I saw these tiny purple flowers. To give them scale, I've shown them next to a 2CHF coin. Now you just need to find out how big a 2CHF coin is.
Lunch Having safely descended Oberrothorn, I met up with my parents for lunch at Sunnega. This is my mum tucking in to bratwurst with onion gravy and fries. Mmmmm.
Bridge After lunch we got the funicular back down to Zermatt, then the cable car back up to Furi to have a closer look at the suspension bridge they'd recently built. The signs said it was only a 20 minute walk away, so we set off.
Hikers My parents looking like actual hikers.
Bridge It looked quite impressive from close up too. A sign said that it's 100m long and is suspended 100m above the bottom of the gorge.
Bridge This is my parents crossing the suspension bridge. If you walked in time with the other people on the bridge, it got quite a good wobble on. It's a good job Judith wasn't there. She would not have liked this at all.
Boardwalk Having finished playing with the suspension bridge, we headed back to Furi.
Cablecar At Furi my parents got the cable car back to town, while I decided to stretch my legs a bit and walk back to town. Here's a photo of my parents passing overhead in the cable car, completely ignoring me taking their photo. Tcheeeer.
Gorge On the way down I passed a sign to a gorge. As gorges are generally quite interesting, I popped in to have a look. There was a boardwalk made of actual, creaking wooden boards. Very impressive. These things are normally made of sturdy, non-creaking metal. It made me feel like I might actually plummet to my death at any moment.
Gorge More creaking wooden boardwalk.
Gorge It was rather impressively scenic though. Here you can just make out the boardwalk high above me in the distance.Anyway, having survived my gorge experience, I returned safely to the hotel for some lovely weissbeer and dinner.
Schwarzsee Wednesday - I was attempting walk four of the four I'd decided I wanted to try before I arrived. It was to the Hornlihutte, "base camp" for mountaineers climbing the Matterhorn.I started by getting the Matterhorn Express cable car up to Schwarzsee. This is a photo of the lake and small church at Schwarzsee. As you can see, it was already pretty cloudy even at this level and I had to climb another 700m yet (and hopefully come back again).
Boardwalk After around half-an-hour I came to this boardwalk. At least this one was made of metal, unlike the wooden one I was on in the gorge yesterday.
Boardwalk Unfortunately, it didn't seem to be quite finished, leaving me with a bit of a leap back on to solid(ish) ground. Still, it was only a few hundred feet to the floor of the valley, so nothing to worry about there.
Ridge After a bit of a climb, the path levelled out along this gently sloping ridge, which was quite nice and lulled me into a false sense of security for...
The Ascent ...the ascent. You can see three people on the slope above me. It was steep and, just to make it a bit more exciting, it was also raining, so the rocks were getting slippery. It was a good job I'd brought Judith's walking pole again.
Hornlihutte After an hour of carefully picking my way up the rocks, through steadily decreasing visibility, I got my first hazy and very welcome view of the Hornlihutte.I stayed for half-an-hour or so to have a bowl of soup and a couple of mini-Mars bars before I headed out for the return journey.
Hornlihutte View Outside visibility had improved slightly, giving a tantalising glimpse of the mass of the Matterhorn that loomed over us. It had also started to snow, which was nice.The journey down was (happily) uneventful. I did take a couple of short video clips to try to capture the atmosphere of the descent in a more meaningful format then the cloud covered photos I'd been taking so far. I've got a nice clip of me walking over the "rock bridge", which is a short stretch of the trail, maybe 10m in length with sheer 300m drops on both sides. The trail guide indicated that the path was only five feet wide at this point, so it was a great relief when I discovered that it was easily eight feet wide, putting me a good four feet from the drops on either side.
Suspension Bridge On the way back to Zermatt on the cable car, there was a nice view of the new suspension bridge that we had walked over yesterday.
High Street Back in Zermatt and the high street was looking pretty busy. I met up with my parents for lunch before heading off for a walk around town to see if I could find anything interesting to take photos of. So far I'd really only taken snaps of scenery and hadn't really tried to do anything interesting or creative with my new camera.
Water Water pouring into a trough. There were loads of these around Zermatt and I've no idea if they actually have a purpose. Presumably you could water your horse, but there are few horses in Zermatt, and they're a bit high for dogs.
Train In the distance the train from Gornergrat passed over a bridge.
Flowers More flowers.
Waterfall Movement in water captured at f/32 without the use of a ND filter (because I hadn't bought one for my new 72mm diameter lenses yet).
Zermatt As I was wandering about I noticed a path to Edelweiss that I'd not been up before, so I thought I'd have a look to see where it joined up with the trail I was used to taking. Turned out it joined up about half way up to Edelweiss, at which point I thought I'd be just as well to walk all the way up to the top.This was the view of Zermatt from the top.
Church A close-up of the church in the centre of town. Hang on, who was that standing on the steps?
Zoom At maximum zoom/magnification, I could see my parents standing outside the church. I was rather pleased with the resolution and image stabilisation of my new camera/lens given that a) my parents must easily have been a mile away from where I was standing, and b) I didn't have a tripod.
HDR Waterfall I think this was my favourite photo of the week.
Hotel Julien Another photo of the flowers decorating the Hotel Julien.
Klein Matterhorn Thursday - Our last full day. We'd been up and down all of the cable cars and trains already this week, so we decided to redo the highest and arguably most impressive of them - Klein Matterhorn. The photo, actually taken by my mum from the view point at Klein Matterhorn, shows some people heading off across the snow to climb Breithorn.We also had another walk around the Glacier Paradise before getting the cable car back to Trockener Steg.
Hiking At Trockener Stegg I parted ways with my parents again to walk down to Furi. As you can see from the photo, visibility wasn't great as I set off.
Markers The top part of the walk was across a rocky terrain, so once again I was guided by markers painted on the rocks. For a while, these proved to be challenging to follow in the foggy/cloudy conditions.
Moth? No idea what this was, but it was sitting on a rock on the trail. A moth of some sort maybe?
Zermatt View Eventually I descended out of the clouds and got my first view of Zermatt in the distance. I continued on down to Furi, where I got the cable car back to town.
High Street Back on the high street, I met up with my parents again. They'd already had lunch, so I popped into McDonalds for one of their fabulous new wraps, which I can highly recommend.
Resting Later we went for a bit of a walk round town and ended up in the Parkhotel Beausite, where Judith and I stayed when we were here a couple of years earlier.
Beausite View There was a fabulous view from their bar. But I think my mum was more interested in their orchids.
Hotel Back at our hotel, I took the opportunity to get a photo of my parents on their balcony.
Sleeping It appeared that the day's exertions had taken their toll on my parents.
High Street Friday - Going home day. However, our train didn't leave Zermatt until 09:39, so there was one final walking opportunity. This is what the high street looked like at 06:10. Not unexpectedly, it was pretty quiet.
Edelweiss Twenty-five arduous minutes later and I'd yomped over 1,000 vertical feet up the mountainside to Edelweiss (my fourth visit of the week).
Edelweiss View Sadly the view was not up to much, so I turned round and headed back to town.
High Street Twenty minutes later and I was back on the high street. There still weren't many people about.
The End Back at the hotel. After breakfast there was just time for a bit of a lounge around on the balcony before we headed for the train that would take us to the train that would take us to the plane that would take us to our car that we would drive home in.Although the weather had probably been the worst I'd ever seen in Zermatt, it' had still been jolly good. I'd done all of the walks I hoped to complete and one more besides and was already looking forward to my next trip to Zermatt (preferably when the exchange rate had improved a bit).