Zermatt 1

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Zermatt

Day one

We arrived about 3 and got picked up by the hotellier, Richard, who was name checked in many positive reviews. 

We had come up by the mountain train which has a central gear link between its tracks to stop it rolling backwards on the high slopes. We ran by the glacial river for a good long way. We had not gotten a seat for this last leg so stood in the vestibule which was kind of good because we could look out of both doors, small mountain towns and the river rushing below and the Alps rising up around us shrouded in mist and always rising. 

We got groceries designed for a real kitchen and a full week at the coop which was a madhouse. Frozen veg and all sorts. Potato rostis etc. By the way the coop is an actual coop its like the food lion or woolies of Switzerland but its a cooperatively owned business with an alliegence to things like free range eggs and local produce. The things we can do if we do things other than corporate profit, it's incredible. Fully unpacked my stuff and fell into bed. Views of the Matterhorn from outside our door, shrouded in cloud. 

Day 2 Hike 1

The larch trees are soft, like fur soft, and their boughs droop down, tiny pinecones. We took a short cut, steep zigzag path up the hill and at the top we were rewarded with more matterhorn views. Now the clouds were clinging to it's head so you could see the height of it but the clouds seem to catch on the top and get stuck in billows. Then on upwards through the small town -- the hikes never get truly remote in this area of the world, you keep wandering through mountain huts, the little restaurant hotels which exist in the most remote places, cultural villages, and highset little towns. 

The lake when we got there was a bit of a train station. In Slovakia I'm used to crystalline alpine lakes in the glacial colors. This was a brown lake with a children's playground next to it. This system of disappointing alpine lakes continued throughout our experience of Switzerland.  Honestly, the most beautiful lakes we saw in Switzerland by far were the ones in the towns Zurich lake and lake Geneva were both gorgeous. Clear, with swans swimming in them, people bathing in the lakes because they were that clean, and blue so blue. 

But when we reached the first lake of the five lakes trail the clouds cleared off entirely and we got our first complete picture postcard view of the Matterhorn. This is what it's all about people. The full incredible sillouette, it seems almost unreal at times because you've seen the image so much before. And knowing my cloudy European weather as I do, I was gonna be satisfied with the views we'd had so far and figure they do the postcards on the one clear day of the year. But no it's all true, crisp beautiful views. 

The Matterhorn appears sometimes to be an old man on a shaggy mountain horse with the snow as his beard. 

So we climbed a bit above the funicular train station and found a likely looking rock to picnic on, gazing at the Matterhorn. After some soul and time searching we decided to turn back here, and make our way back to town.

We took another shortcut back down, a treacherously steep little track which went straight down half the elevation with no switchbacks. It snuck by a couple of old bunkers set into the mountain side Ww2 holdovers oder etwas. It was quite lush the groundcover, but we had to climb down really delicately. We found out some of the way down that this was a Matterhorn training track, if you can make it up this thing at a run in 20 mins, you're ready for the Matterhorn. 

We took the gentler sloped bike way back to town, a forest walk again that belled to the side of the town and then back. We were out about 7-8 hours that day with 800m elevation gain, probably the highest of our trip. 

We turned back with an eye to returning with the energy to make dinner and live a little instead of having chips and beer while we cried -- but in the end we had chips and beer and cried, the first in a long line of trying to pick within our capabilities in an environment where everyone else is a Matterhorn summiting alien and failing utterly, both at resembling a Matterhorn summiting alien and and remaining within our capabilities. 

Our hotel, as advertised had a Matterhorn view, and so when we got back over our chips and beer we could still watch it all evening until the lure of being spread-eagle was too strong.