We Made It To Zermatt!

We left this morning at 10:20 am ready to hike the last leg of the Walker's Haute Route to Zermatt. In some ways, the last stretch was a little anti-climatic - the route followed the river and wove through some construction areas as we got closer to Zermatt. After all the beautiful scenery we've seen the last two weeks, the end was a little disappointing. However, that did not take away from our excitement of having accomplished our goal of hiking 115 miles.

 

 

 

 

 

Here we are at the top of the hill overlooking Zermatt. As we walked down the hill, we saw several para-gliders sailing over the city.

We stopped at a cafe to have some snacks before making our way to the apartment we rented for two nights. We passed out the last of the Advil to those that needed it - notice only one Advil left in the container that was full when we started!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We bought some groceries and are settled into our apartment - tomorrow, we're hoping to get a view of the Matterhorn which is covered by clouds now.

We talked a lot about this experience and are so glad we had the chance to take this hike. We've learned a lot and would do some things differently - mostly we're grateful to have traveled the whole way from Chamonix, France to Zermatt, Switzerland!

We are looking forward to a full day in Zermatt tomorrow and then we'll head onto Geneva for two days before heading home to Minneapolis.

 

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A Day Full of Surprises!

 

The hiking team was THRILLED with our departure time of 9 am - our first morning since starting the trip not leaving by 7:30 am. Oh, did we enjoy the extra time in the morning!

Kris and Tom had figured out all the logistics of our revised ending to our trip - we would do the "valley route" from St. Niklaus to Zermatt in two days staying at Randa for a night (about half-way to Zermatt). They found a place online in Randa called the Matterhorn Golf Hotel that had an excellent rating by Trip Advisor and very reasonable rates.

 

The first step was to hop on the bus in Gasenried to take a 20 minute bus ride down the steep mountain to St. Niklaus where we would pick up the valley trail to Zermatt.

Once in St. Niklaus, we spent a little time exploring this quaint little village - we were all liking the new leisurely pace!

Dr. Tom made a stop at the Apotheke to supplement his items for foot blisters while we all waited outside on a bench.

 

 

Chanda has been our expert group photographer - here she is setting up a group photo by the large "St. Niklaus" in a town square.

After this nice easy start, our first surprise was how difficult it was to actually find the trail for the valley route to Zermatt! We had several fits and starts and backtracked several times - we stopped into the Tourism Office in St. Niklaus and got some more directions. We passed several women who saw us looking confused and they pointed the direction - the direction lead to a construction site where the construction workers kept pointing to "a trail" leading right through the construction. Meanwhile, we didn't see any of our familiar yellow signs assuring us we were on the right track.

 

Finally we got past the construction and on to a path that we were fairly sure was the valley route. Our plan for our leisurely hiking day was to have lunch in a small hamlet called Herbriggen - we were ready for a lunch other than our trail lunches of bread, cheese, trail mix, etc.

 

Since it was such a beautiful day, we were hoping for a place we could sit outside. However, the only place that appeared to have a restaurant in this tiny town was at the Herbriggen Hotel. We went into the hotel and had a second surprise. Our waitress went and found a young man who explained the German menu to us in detail. Chanda and I chose a salad and the rest of the group chose variations of a traditional Swiss Rösti. It appears that a Rösti is a baked dish that generally includes potatoes, meat, cheese, and eggs.

 

 

We were so surprised by the beautiful presentation of the food and how good it tasted! Definitely a step up from a trail lunch.

After our "big lunch" we were surprised that the next portion of the "valley trail" seemed to start climbing - we were not feeling too energetic after the heavy food and beer lunch. Once again, there were a couple points where it wasn't totally clear which way to go.

We did find our way, however, and reached our hotel in Randa by 4 pm. We talked to Maurizio who checked us in and told him we would have dinner at the hotel. He told us this was the first day of the "low season." Soon it was apparent that Maurizio and his wife, Elena, filled all the roles during the low season - front desk check-in, room cleaner, waitress, chef, & maintenance man.

When we met downstairs for dinner, it was our group of 6 and one other table of 3. We were surprised to learn that Maurizio and his wife were from Italy - they and their 3 boys lived at the hotel. Their English was much better than our Italian - both of them made sure we had a dining experience that was spectacular!

The food was so good and the presentation was beautiful. On each course, there were flowers on Chanda, Kris, and my plates. See the photo of my salad that was wrapped inside lettuce leaves.

 

Kris and I had chicken that had been roasted in foil - so good. Here is a photo of the plate presentation of the lasagna and dessert.

 

Chef Maurizio

 

We were joking how on this day our caloric output had gone way down while our input had gone way up! We're all hoping to not totally undo all the body trimming we've experienced during our rigorous hike during our last few "soft days." :-)

The final surprise was the piano player who entertained us all evening - he played great music and then pulled up Tom to try some karaoke.

After Tom gave it a try, Chanda gave us a rendition of It's a Wonderful World. She insisted that Kris and I come up and join her - we "sang" Hey Jude. Well, this trip has been full of surprises and new experiences for me - I never thought I'd ever try karaoke, but it's been a day full of surprises!

 

P.S. I wanted to make sure to share a picture of Elena, Maurizio's wife. Here are the moms of boys - I have 4 boys, Elena has 3 boys, and Chanda has 3 boys.

 

 

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Onward to Gasenried!

Kris and Tom volunteered to take a day off of hiking to help modify the remainder of the trip. We had already decided that we would not go to the Europa Hut - the trail up to the hut is through reputedly unstable boulder fields with lots of exposure. There were reports from fellow hikers that parts of the trail were damaged and there was one point where there was a lengthy detour. Many of the other hikers we met were changing their plans, too, and not going to the Europa Hut. So Kris and Tom's mission was to cancel our reservation there and figure out some new logistics for the next two days.

Meanwhile Kevin, Chanda, Greg, and Betsy set out for the last major hike at about 7:40 am.

We made good time up to the col - all the way up we could look across the valley and see the route that we had descended yesterday into Gruben.

 

Note Chanda's excitement at reaching the top of the col!

 

We know that as happy as we are to reach the top that the descents are often harder - here's a picture of what we saw on the other side. We would literally be going down into the clouds.

 

Of course, we had to have the full boulder/scree experience - we spent about 1.5 hours picking our way down through boulders. For me, this was my most successful day ever negotiating the rocks. The combination of acclimation, increased confidence, and lighter packs has made a big difference.

Over the last several days we've met some wonderful other hikers - since we've all been staying mostly at the same places and we see each other on the trails, we've enjoyed the fun of getting to know their stories. Here are Chris and Kim from Australia and Laura and Ashley from Portland.

 

Right after this point we had made it through the rocks, but then had a stretch of "exposed trail" - basically this means a very narrow trail with a steep drop off - this time there was no chain on the mountain side to hold onto so it was a little unnerving.

 

When we finally rounded the corner, however, we we rewarded with one of the most magnificent views from our trip - the Dom Mountain surrounded by an amazing panorama of other peaks. The Dom is the highest peak in the Swiss Alps lying entirely in Switzerland.

From that beautiful view we continued our way down to Jungun, a small hamlet on the side of the mountain. Our plan was to meet Kris and Tom there (they had traveled there by bus and cable car).

At Jungun, we all took the cable car down to St. Niklaus and then hopped on a bus to Gasenried. We were SO HAPPY to get to our hotel by 5:30! That gave us some extra time to enjoy some time on the patio overlooking the mountains before washing clothes, eating dinner, and falling into bed. No late nights for these hikers!

 

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Captain Kevin's Alternative Plan to Gruben

 

Due to the condition of several of the members of the hiking team, Captain Kevin developed an alternative plan for us to get to Gruben (the original route would have been one of the most challenging hiking days ever with huge amounts of elevation gain and descent - given our speed, it might have been another 12 hour day).

The Captain's plan, however, did require us to leave the Auberge Alpina where we had been staying at 7:10 am (there was some grumbling among the troops) in order to walk to a bus stop to catch a bus to St. Luc. As we passed a patisserie that was open, Kevin bought pain du chocolate for all to celebrate Tom and Chanda's anniversary.

Once in St. Luc, we walked some more to the funicular station that we took up the mountain along with lots of mountain bikers.

 

Once we got off the funicular, we stopped at a hillside cafe and had coffee - the troops were now happy and enthusiastic about starting our hike on this beautiful day. The weather helped everyone's spirits for sure!

 

Our alternative route involved going up through the Meidpass col and then descending into Gruben. Gruben is generally considered the first "German" Swiss town, and as we hiked, we certainly heard more German being spoken on the trail. Certainly earlier on the hike, it is part of the culture for every passing hiker to greet you with "bonjour" - now the passing hikers were saying "guten tag."

 

Now don't get the impression that our alternative route was a "piece of cake." No, all morning we could see the Meidpass col rising up ahead of us as we did the slow steady climb up ( the col is right to the left of the jagged spikes).

 

You can see here when we stopped for a break we still had a long way to go!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here are Tom and Chanda at another break holding up 11 fingers for their 11th anniversary.

 

Of course no accent to a col is complete without a boulder and/or scree field. What made this final ascent even more exciting was having to dodge (quickly step off the narrow trail) for descending mountain bikers who were coming over the pass.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We were so happy to finally reach the col in the early afternoon and were afforded so spectacular views on both sides.

 

After a brief celebration and lots of photos, we soberly looked at what we still needed to descend to get to Gruben. You can see Greg looking down - note you can't even see the valley floor where Gruben is located!

 

Here you can just begin to get a glimpse of the valley below, but can also see how far we have to go!

Finally, we are able to see where we will be spending the night - at the Hotel Schwartzhorn! We got inside our rooms at about 6 pm - we couldn't imagine what condition we would have been in if our faithful Captain hadn't figured out an alternative route to Gruben!

 

 

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