Getting High in Switzerland

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Hmm... it's been a while since I posted. I think I've been having too much fun climbing mountains.

I guess I should go back and fill in some details from the last couple weeks, since my last update didn't contain much.

The bad news... I don't have photos to include. Again. Well, I HAVE photos, I just can't add them. This computer keeps crashing every time I try. Bah! I promise a truly outrageous number of photos in about a week when I'm home! Including many many mountains and some cookies!

Sunday the, uh... 31st of August, I think? I went for a hike near Innsbruck, Austria. There's a series of cable cars starting right in the city that take you up a nearby mountain (ski area in the winter). I rode 3/4 of the way up, then hiked the remaining distance. It's cheating to use lifts like that, but it allowed for a longer day of rambling along the ridge instead of climbing up, so it was worth it. I managed to get a fairly exciting summit in on the way! Walking all the way down was cheaper than the gondola, but not so good on the knees witih over 2300 vertical metres of downhill for the day!

The day following I took a series of 5 different trains that took me to the western end of Austria, through Liechtenstein, into Switzerland, and to Luzern where I stayed the night. I ate a really really good cookie en route, but it begged the question of when a cookie stops being a cookie and starts being a granola bar. Still, it was cookie-like enough for me, so I gave it a 9/10. New record for Europe! Luzern is a nice city, and I wish I'd spent more time there. Switzerland is definitely expensive again though after going through eastern Europe, and the prices were scaring me. The cookie I ate here was only an 8/10, anyways.

Tuesday I took a train to Interlaken, then after leaving most of my stuff at a hostel I went farther up the valley to the town of Grindelwald. This town is in the shadow of the north face of the Eiger, which is fairly exciting in itself. I went for a hike again there (cheating with a gondola again! For shame!) to the top of the Schwarzhorn which provided an excellent view of the Eiger as well as some of the surrounding mountains. The weather was almost perfect and the view was unbelievable.

Wednesday I felt in need of a rest after all the recent hiking, so I took a scenic train ride west to the southern end of Lake Geneva. There were no cheap hostels in Montreux (it would have been nice to stay though, the place is almost tropical with all sorts of palm trees around on the lakeshore!), so I carried on up the valley to Martigny, from where I posted last time. Martigny is a smaller town, but has some interesting features including a forum dating back to Roman times.

Thursday, as I mentioned previously, was rainy. I took a train across the border to Chamonix, France, and got a couple glimpses of glaciers on the flank of Mont Blanc. Mostly I just wandered around the town for a couple hours and ate some gigantic, yummy cookies. I rated them a 9/10, which puts them on par with the Austrian one I had. And since I'll never be back to either country on this trip, it looks like it'll stay a stalemate!

So there are the details I omitted last time I posted last week. Since then? It's mostly been Zermatt.

Friday was the last day of validity for my Interrail pass, so I used it to get myself up to the resort town of Zermatt, in a valley at the southern edge of Switzerland. Rather than travel around and spend a bunch of money, I decided to spend most of my remaining time here before flying home.

Zermatt is a neat place for several reasons. First, of course, it's famous for being at the foot of the Matterhorn. There are also a whole bunch of the other highest peaks of the Alps around, making it a mecca for mountaineers. Perhaps even more these days, Zermatt is known as a winter ski paradise. "High Season" hotel rates are in the winter! It certainly seems like a really good place to come if you've got the money for a few days of good skiing: 4 mountains (depending on how you count them), 30-some lifts, and you can even ski down the south side of the peaks into Italy. Toss in good snow, glaciers providing summer skiing and a long season, and one chairlift going all the way up to 3800 metres (roughly 2200m above Zermatt) and it defintitely seems to have earned its reputation!

Zermatt is also a car-free town. Visitors can only arrive and depart by train. All of the local taxis, busses, and transport vehicles for shops are small electric trucks. Sure you still have to dodge traffic on occasion, but at least there are no waits at traffic lights!

So Friday and Saturday I mostly just sat around in town. Friday I didn't have much time to do anything after getting up here, and Saturday was rainy in the afternoon. Sunday looked dismal in the morning, but a local webcam on top of a nearby mountain showed that all the clouds were in the valley. Time for hiking! I grabbed my stuff and headed uphill as fast as I could. At first I thought I wasn't going to get high enough in time, but luckily the clouds were clearing as I reached my summit and there was a brilliant view all around the valley. Words cannot describe! Once I have more time at home I'll whip up some panorama pics and post those.

Monday was again cloudy in the morning, but less so than Sunday so I went up a peak on the other side of the valley. Again the clouds cleared off around noon and there was a perfect view all around. 2/2!

Tuesday was the opposite: perfectly sunny in the morning. I started early and headed up to the Hornlihutte, a mountain hut perched on the flank of the Matterhorn. This is the point at which the hiking trail ends and the usual climbing route for the Matterhorn begins. It was a busy place on a nice day, but most people were, like myself, just there for the view. A couple people were there to make the climb the following day, despite some fresh snow on the upper mountain from the rain on the weekend. I had very briefly considered buying a guided trip to the top, but decided I didn't have $1000 to spend on such an adventure.

Tuesday evening it clouded over, and today, Wednesday, has been partly cloudy and showery. Suits me, as I'm a bit weary after 3 big hikes in a row. Hopefully tomorrow will be nice again though, because I have one more mountain I want to bag while I'm here!

Until next time!

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Comments

[Alessandro]

Riveting Excitement!
It's a shame you can't bring sample of your awesome cookie adventures home. That's just as important as you backpacking adventure! Oh the wonders I'll never see; you are a lucky man. Enjoy yourself always, that's all we ever have.