Zermatt Oh dear. We weren't supposed to be going to Zermatt again this year. But when it finally came time to make a decision, we just couldn't resist. Doh!
Heathrow T5 Saturday - We managed to get (relatively) cheap business class flights to Geneva from the usually excellent Heathrow T5. However, on this day T5 was a complete shambles. There was a long queue for bag drop, the security checks we an organisational catastrophe and the business class lounge was absolutely rammed (lovely bacon rolls though). Not a very relaxing start to our holiday at all.
White Cliffs No sure exactly where these were. I think we were a bit far west for it to be Dover.
Mountains Our first view of the Alps as we descended towards Geneva.
Mont Blanc We got a nice view of Mont Blanc as we approached Geneva.Having landed, we boarded a train to Visp, where we switched to the mountain train to Zermatt. Once in Zermatt we were met at the station by the little electric buggy from our hotel. All very relaxing and efficient.
Matterhorn Focus Once we'd checked in, we were given a complimentary welcome drink. I was half way through mine before I realised they'd sneakily given me an alcohol-free beer!!!
Room Here's our room. Very strange. Completely glass fronted (although you can't see that in this photo as the curtains are drawn), with a glass bathroom in the middle of the room! Not ideal accommodation for the shy and/or reserved.
Matterhorn View As there were still a couple of hours until sunset, I thought I would be able to sneak in a quick yomp up to Edelweiss, a mere 368m (1,207 feet) ascent. Just what one needs to work up an appetite for dinner.This was the almost view of the Matterhorn as I made my way across town.
Edelweiss View Just under 27 minutes later and I was standing at Edelweiss admiring the view of Zermatt. Just over 21 minutes after that and I was back on the high street again.Pizza for tea.Distance walked today - 3.2 milesAscent today - 1,207 feet (368m)Descent today - 1,207 feet (368m)
Raining! Sunday - Our first full day and I'd decided to walk to the Schonbielhutte. Unfortunately the weather was being rather unpleasant. Consequently my phone was in a plastic bag, which is why the next several photos look a bit blurry. However, it does give them a sort of painted look, which I quite like. This was the trail on the way out of town, looking into the murk in the distance.
Zmutt As there was some shelter in Zmutt, I stopped briefly to check my map.
Valley View The views up the valley were still pretty good, despite the weather.
Waterfall If this waterfall has a name, and it looks like it should, it's not on my map.
Diversion The trail used to go along the edge of the glacial moraine, which you can see in the distance, but it's been diverted. Possibly people walking on it were eroding it too quickly. Possibly someone fell off. It's a really long way to the bottom on the other side.
Hutte Nearly there. Although the last bit of the trail up to the Schonbielhutte (in the upper right of this photo) is a bit of an uphill slog, unlike most of the rest of the trail, which has been a steady climb.
Lunch At the Hutte, I ordered soup for lunch. The lady asked something in heavily accented English, which I assumed was "would you like bread with your soup"?. It appears what she was actually asking was "would you like a massive sausage in your soup?" And very nice it was too.
Sunshine! Remarkably, in the 20-30 minutes I was having my lunch, the weather changed completely. I arrived in the rain and left under a largely blue sky. As I left, this was the view down the valley I'd walked up.
Matterhorn The Matterhorn was visible just across the valley, although it was still fairly obscured by clouds. It's not very recognisable from this angle as I was basically looking straight up the north face.
Hutte Behind me I could now see the Schonbielhutte in the context of its impressive surroundings.
Morraine View From the trail on top of the glacial morraine there was a fabulous view down the valley. It's a shame there's nothing to provide any scale because it was probably three or four hundred feet from where I was standing to the valley floor.
Ibex Now the ran had stopped, the wildlife had started to come out.
Trail A lovely view of the trail stretching away into the distance.
Marmot My first marmot of the week. Or at least the first one I managed to get a photo of. There were loads on the glacial morraine, but they legged it as soon as they saw me approaching.
Gornergrat In the very far distance, probably about ten miles away, I could see the hotel at Gornergrat set against the enormous mass of the Gorner Glacier. It was looking pretty snowy up there, which didn't bode well for getting any walking in.
Hornli Ridge The Hornli Ridge was also covered in snow, which meant I wouldn't be making any attempts to reach the Hornlihutte this week. The high, rocky bit of the ridge on the rigtht can be covered in snow at pretty much any time of year. But I'd never seen the lower bit on the left covered in snow at this time of year.
Valley View A nice view looking back up the valley towards the Schonbielhutte.
Schonbielhutte As the trail briefly rose, I got a fabulous view of the Schonbielhutte in the far distance set against the Zmutt Glacier.
Waterfall Back at the waterfall with no name. There seemed to be more water flowing over it than when I passed earlier. Must have been all of the rain from earlier.
Trees As the trail continued down the valley, I descended below the tree line.
Zmutt I finally made it to Zmutt, which can be seen in the bottom right of this photo...
Judith ...where Judith was waiting for me. We had a beer before heading back to town.
Beer Rosti for dinner for me. Judith had her favourite molten cheese in a bowl (fondue). And we also discovered this Zermatt Bier, which is brewed locally and turned out to be rather nice indeed.Distance walked today - 15.9 milesAscent today - 4,035 feet (1,230m)Descent today - 4,035 feet (1,230m)
Focus View Monday - A last chance to have a look at the view from our patio at the Matterhorn Focus before we checked out.The bottom of the Matterhorn was just visible.
Focus Dining Here's a view of the Matterhorn Focus dining area, where breakfast is served. Judith is just visible on the right checking out. The hotel kindly ran us back into the centre of town, where we got on the train to...
Gornergrat Gornergrat. We stayed up here for one night in 2014 and really enjoyed it, so we thought it would be a good idea to come back for two nights and sample it at a slightly more relaxed pace.The Matterhorn was still lurking in the cloud.
Hohtalli There's a trail to the cablecar station at Hohtalli, which can be seen in the middle of this photo. However, I was unable to complete this trail last year due to ice and snow on the trail, despite the weather being excellent. So the chances of being able to complete the trail this year seemed slim at best.
Snow! A few minutes later and the visibility was rapidly diminishing as a snow shower closed in.
Beer So we retreated indoors. We'd arrived a couple of hours too early to check in, so we went to the restaurant for some lunch and a beer.
Room Later we checked in and were shown to our room. The rooms are all named after Swiss mountains and the room number is the height of the mountain (in meters).
Mountain Also, on the wall of the room is a topographical map of the mountain, with a bit of rock from the mountain attached to where the peak would be. A nice touch.
Room View And this was the view from our room. The weather had improved significantly since we were forced indoors a couple of hours ago.As the restaurant wasn't going to even open for dinner for another three hours or so, I thought I would sneak out for a quick walk.
Rotenboden I could have got the train down to Rotenboden, but it seemed a bit of a cheat, so I walked down. At Rotenboden the trail splits. The right trail continues down the mountain to Riffleberg and Zermatt. The left trail, where I was heading, almost doubles back on itself to head up the valley to the Gorner Glacier.
Trail At this point the Gorner Glacier was still out of sight. The glacier visible on the right is the Grenz Glacier.
Marmot This marmot was ambling down the trail ahead of me when I rounded a bend in the trail. It didn't hang around for very long once it had spotted me though.
Marmot There were loads of marmots around though and it didn't take too long for me to get close enough to one for a good photo.
Trail Here you can see the trail winding along the side of the valley to the Gorner Glacier in the distance.
Ibex A herd of Ibex near the trail.
Reflection Almost a good reflection of the glacier and surrounding mountains in this small lake.
End of the Trail Or at least the end of the hiking trail. It was an alpine trail from this point and I wasn't kitted or skilled enough for that.
Glacier This was as close to the end of the glacier as I managed to get. Unfortunately there were no reference points in the photo to provide any scale. In the bottom right of the photo, there's the entrance to a sort of cave under the glacier. I reckon the entrance was about 30 feet high.
Selfie With my camera balanced on a rock, I managed to take this photo of me with the Grenz Glacier in the background.
Selfie Another one of me with the Gorner Glacier in the background.
Return The return trail was slightly uphill, which was okay. However, what was making the going a bit challenging was the absloutely howling head wind that had developed over the previous half-hour or so. I was very glad of my windproof top layer at this point.
Railway After about 45 minutes I made it back to Rotenboden. I'd bought a train ticket as I left Gornergrat, just in case the walk was longer than expected, or the weather turned really nasty on the way back. However, I was doing okay, so I started walking back up to Gornergrat.The Matterhorn was still hiding in the clouds.
Gornergrat Before too long I got my first clear view of the hotel.
Gornergrat If you look carefully you can just about see Judith peering out of our room's window towards the left side of the hotel, about half way up.
Before Dinner There was just time for a look at the view from our room before dinner as it would be dark by the time we'd finished eating. The Matterhorn was positively refusing to put in an appearance.
After Dinner Well that was a bit of an unexpected turn of events. While we were at dinner almost all of the cloud cover had disappeared.The Matterhorn looks like it's lit up because it is. 2015 is the 150th anniversary of the first ascent and as part of the celebrations they've illuminated the route the climbers took.
Star Trails As I had my camera out and it was still fairly early I thought I'd be as well to do some star trails.Distance walked today - 7.3 milesAscent today - 2.093 feet (638m)Descent today - 2,093 feet (638m)
Matterhorn Tuesday - Finally the Matterhorn had decided to make an appearance in the daylight. Although there was still a lot of high cloud around.
Helicopter As I was leaving the hotel to walk down to Zermatt, this helicopter flew past, low over the Gorner Glacier, a couple of thousand feet below us.
Helicopter It then looped around and flew towards us...
Helicopter ...before briefly landing and dropping this bloke off. That's not a bad way to travel to work in the morning.
Rotenboden I set of walking down, whilst Judith jumped on the train. This was the view approaching Rotenboden.
Reflection Despite the fact that it was still quite windy, there was an almost reasonable reflection in the lake (which is called Riffelsee).
No Reflection In this neaby lake there was no reflection to be seen. If this lake has a name, it's not shown on my map.
Marmot There were a few marmots around near the trail between Rotenboden and Riffelberg, which was quite surprising given that it is by a significant margin the busiest trail around Zermatt.
Riffelberg After a short while I reached Riffelberg...
Riffelberg ...where I met up with Judith, who had got off the train to join me on the next bit of the descent to Zermatt.
Riffelalp We walked from Riffelberg down to Riffelalp, which is the cluster of buildings visible in the bottom left of this photo (not to be confused with Zermatt itself, which is also visible in the distance in the bottom left of this photo).At Riffelalp Judith got back on the train, whilst I completed the last 2,000 feet (600m) of descent to Zermatt.
Zermatt In Zermatt I met up with Judith again and we went for a bite to eat.
After Lunch After lunch I was intending to walk all the way back up to Gornergrat, but I didn't have time for that (it was already after 2pm and the signs said it should take about four-and-a-half hours). So I cheated a bit and got the train from Zermatt (visible on the left of the photo) back up to Riffelalp (visible in the bottom left of the photo), which cut 2,000 feet (600m) off the ascent and left me with a mere 3,000 feet (900m) to walk myself.
Weather About half way up the mountains in the distance started to disappear into the clouds. I switched into full wet gear in anticipation of the coming rain/snow. However, the rain/snow didn't materialise, which was a bit of a relief.
Gornergrat An hour or so later and I was back at Gornergrat. As I still had an hour before dinner, I popped outside to take a few photos.
Miscellaneous View Here's a miscellaneous view looking braodly north.
Stones There are lots of piles of stones like this around the top of Gornergrat, so I entertained myself for a few minutes trying to get a photo of them against an interesting glacial/mountainous background.
Stones
Stones I think this was my best/most interesting effort.
Trains There were a couple of trains up/down yet to run, but at this time of day there was pretty much no-one around apart from the people staying up here.
Church This is the small church next to the hotel.Distance walked today - 12.0 milesAscent today - 3,146 feet (959m)Descent today - 5,009 feet (1,527m)(More descent than ascent today due to the getting-the-train-cheat on the way back up.)
Rainbow Wednesday - We were relocating back to Zermat today. The weather still wasn't looking too smart, although there was a very nice rainbow visible from our room as we got ready to check out of the hotel.
Train This is the train that took us back to Zermatt. There was a howling gale blowing at this point and I've got a nice video of the train rocking about in the wind as we were waiting to depart. I presume there must be a point where the wind is too strong for the trains to run. Fortunately we hadn't reached that point on this day.
Rainbow The rainbow was visible from the train most of the way down into Zermatt.
Firefly We had debated extensively about where we would stay when we relocated back to Zermatt and intended to stay somewhere we'd not been before. However, when it came rigth down to it and we had to actually make a decision, we caved and went back to our favourite place - the Firefly.
Suite!!! They remembered us from last year and bumped us from the 1-bed suite we'd booked to this stunning 3-bed suite. This is a photo of one end of our lounge/dining area.
Balcony View This was the view from our bedroom balcony (we had another balcony in the living room).
Lounge Here's Judith relaxing on one of the sofas in our lounge.
Museum Having re-familiarised ourselves with our fabulous hotel, we went our for a walk. We decided to visit the Matterhorn Museum, as we'd never been in there despite this being our eighth visit to Zermatt,
Museum And well worth the effort it was too. There was lots of interesting information about the first ascent of the Matterhorn in 1865 and how it essentially started the tourism industry in the town.
Police Car Presumably there are few high-speed car chases in Zermatt?
View Having entertained ourselves around town for the afternoon, I thought it would be a good idea to stretch my legs a bit before dinner, so I set off on the short walk to Edelweiss for the second time this week.
Edelweiss Having already done a fair bit of walking this week, and having just spent two days at altitude, I made it from the high street to Edelweiss, an 1,100 foot (335m) ascent, in a personal best time of 25 minutes and 34 seconds! I think it will take a considerable effort for me to improve on that.
Edelweiss This was the view of Edelweiss from our hotel room.
Edelweiss Zoomed in a bit you can see the building more clearly.
Edelweiss Zoomed in as far as our compact Panasonic TZ30 camera could manage, it's just possible to make out my blue jacket.
Cross On my way back down, Judith managed to snap me again under the huge cross that stands over the town as I was scouting for potential photo locations. In the photo the cross seems much bigger than it did when I was standing next to it.
Cross Me under the cross again.
Pool Back at the hotel and it was time for a relaxing dip in their lovely pool before heading out for dinner.
Dinner Had a lovely burger and another Zermatt Bier for dinner in the Brown Cow bar/restaurant...
Bar 55 ...after which we retired to our hotel's stylish Bar 55.
Cocktail Judith had some sort of hilariously expensive cocktail.
Beer I had a nice (and moderately priced) beer.
Stars Back in our room, I spent ten minutes on the bedroom balcony checking to see if there was any possibility of a clear sky. As you can see, there wasn't, so no star trails photos this evening.Distance walked today - 2.9 milesAscent today - 1,273 feet (388m)Descent today - 1,273 feet (388m)
Train Thursday - I was planning to walk to the top of Wisshorn today, but it was still looking rather windy out so it didn't look like it would be a good idea to try to walk to the top of a mountain. So I decided to get the train from Zermatt to Tasch and spend the day walking in the valley to the east of Tasch.Here's the train that took me to Tasch.
Sunny! I'd set off in full wet weather gear as the weather was pretty miserable when I left the hotel. However, within half-an-hour of leaving Tasch it was rather sunny out and I had to stop and change back into my "normal" walking kit.
Broken An hour later and it was pouring with rain and I was back in my full wet weather gear again. My phone was also back in a plastic bag, which is why this picture looks blurred.Whatever was going on down that trail, they definitely did not want me to see/experience it.
Taschalp A while later and I approached what I think was Taschalp, although I had been following signs to somewhere called Ottavan or Ottafan depending on whether one was looking at the signposts or my topo map.
Valley View A quick look at my map indicated that the trail continued along the valley for several more miles. However, I'd arranged to meet Judith at Tasch station in about three hours and by this point it was going to take almost two hours to walk back. So I decided to press on towards the Taschhutte. It was signposted as being 75 minutes away, so I realistically wasn't going to have the time to get there. But I thought it was worth seeing how far I could get.
The End And this was as far as I got. That's Taschalp/Ottavan/Ottafan in the distance.
Sign The signpost I'd stopped next to indicated that I was still 50 minutes from the Taschhutte. Doh!I turned round and headed back towards Tasch station.
Blocked. I must have been super turbo charged or something on the way down as the signs said it should take two hours to get down and I actually arrived in Tasch in just over an hour. So I had a bit of a wait for Judith (while I wondered whether I could have made it to the Taschhutte after all).Judith arrived on time and we started walking back to Zermatt. The trail was bearing scars from the strong winds earlier in the day.
Bar 55 Many hours later we made it back to our hotel, where we had a dip in the pool before going for a beer in the bar.
Games Room This is the games room in the bar.Just for a bit of variety we ordered a takeaway pizza for dinner. The hotel helpfully phoned our order through and said they'd pay for the pizza when it arrived and charge it to our room. The Firefly is so awesome.
Star Trails Out on our balcony later there were no clouds to be seen! So I took this star trails photo. For the technically minded, it's a stack of fifty 30 second exposures, f/2.8, ISO3200Distance walked today - 13.4 milesAscent today - 4.026 feet (1,227m)Descent today - 3,547 feet (1,081m)
Wisshorn Friday - The weather was much improved so I decided to try the walk I'd aborted yesterday to the top of Wisshorn. This was the view of Wisshorn from our balcony. Although it was fairly bright out, there was already a fair amount of cloud on the mountain.
Valley View Leaving Zermatt, it was pretty sunny out indeed looking to the north.
Zermatt View It was not quite so sunny looking to the south as I started my ascent, but it was still pretty nice out compared to previous days.
Rain That didn't last though and within an hour the clouds had descended and it had started to rain. I had managed to walk as far as the start of the avalanche defences before I felt compelled to switch to full wet weather kit.
Valley View It periodically brigthened up, but never really enough to tempt me out of my wet weather gear. I got some nice views across the valley though.
Blauherd/Rothorn At one point I got a fabulous backlit view through the clouds, across the valley to the cable car stations at Blauherd (in the bottom right) and Rothorn (in the top left). I just managed to take this photo before the clouds closed in again and the view was gone.
Matterhorn - Almost A while later the skies around me cleared significantly and I could almost see the Matterhorn in the distance.Judith texted to say she'd got a cablecar up to Schwarzsee, which is the cablecar station closest to the Matterhorn, and the views from there were awesome.
Sheep These sheep seemed very interested in me as I walked past, perhaps because there are no cablecars on this side of the valley so not many people come up this way. I'd been walking for approaching three hours and only seen one person.
Hut This shepherds hut gave a good indication as to why I'd not tried to come up here yesterday when the weather was more inclement. There are four large planks of wood firmly attaching the roof to the walls, then the whole structure is anchored to the ground using steel cables attached to metal posts that are concreted into the ground.The top of Wisshorn is just up that slope behind he hut.
Last Leg Although there was a very faint trail marker painted on the ground, the trail to the top was disturbingly indistinct. It's just about visible in the photo, but when you're standing on it looking around, it was rather more challenging to follow.
Top This is the marker post at the top. And the sky had briefly cleared (at least to the west). Yay!
Mountains and Glaciers With my camera balanced on a rock, here's a photo of me with the view to the west. There was no point in taking a photo of the view to the east as it was completely covered with cloud.
Matterhorn The Matterhorn was still doggedly refusing to make a proper appearance.
Panorama A panorama of the view to the west taken with my phone.It was time for a spot of lunch before I started back down.
Clouds It didn't take long for the view to disappear into the clouds again.
Trift After about an hour I got my first views of the hotel/restaurant at Trift, which is just visible in the middle of this photo.
Church This is the small church that sits a short distance from Trift.
Trift The hotel/restaurant is actually quite big when you get up close.
Valley There were some nice views on the way back down to Zermatt from Trift.
Valley More nice views.
Valley More nice views. I'd forgotten what a steep and challenging track this was.
Edelweiss After an hour or so I passed Ededweiss again. Not far back to the hotel from here.
Relaxing Back to the hotel for a swim before heading out for dinner. We spent the rest of our last evening in Zermatt relaxing in our room in front of the fire. Nice.Distance walked today - 10.9 milesAscent today - 4,573 feet (1,394m)Descent today - 4,573 feet (1,394m)
Edelweiss Saturday - Our flight wasn't until the evening, so we had some time to spare before we needed to leave Zermatt, so I took the opportunity for one last walk up to Edelweiss before breakfast. Edelweiss is just visible in the distance, directly above the signpost.
Valley View The weather was looking very nice this morning. Probably the best we'd seen all week. Typical.
Sunrise (sort of) The view of the sun coming up over the mountains from Edelweiss.
Matterhorn Back at the hotel and we were getting our first clear view of the Matterhorn for days. This was taken from our balcony.
Blue Sky This was definitely shaping up to be the nicest day of the week by a significant margin. Time to checkout of our wonderful hotel and head for the station.
Train This was the mountain train that took us from Zermatt to Visp, where we switched to the train that took us all the way to Geneva Airport. Using a supersaver ticket and a half fare card, our first class tickets for the four hour journey only cost £30 each! Bargain.
Sunset At Geneva Airport there was no queue for check in, the business class lounge was a haven of peace and tranquility and the business class section of the plane was almost deserted (which made it slightly more annoying when the woman sitting in front of Judith fully reclined her seat the second the fasten-seatbelts sign went off). I even managed to get this nice view of the approaching sunset. What a very pleasant end to another excellent holiday.Distance walked today - 2.9 milesAscent today - 1,273 feet (388m)Descent today - 1,273 feet (388m)Distance walked this week - 68.5 milesAscent this week - 21,626 feet (6,592m)Descent this week - 23,010 feet (7,013m)