Zermatt 2

Day 3 Hike 2 the Glacier garden

We took off the second day along the river. The river flowing by the town is glacial green the same one we came up on by the railroad. This devolved to following under the funicular heading up to alpine levels and then evolved into the Kulturweg, a trail that takes you through various alpine villages, historical huts which are built around. There's a trail which takes you all through them, we didn't do the whole of this but a good bit.

The target for today's hike was the Furi suspension bridge. We hiked up to Furi. About an hour and a half uphill, and then there was an incredibly charming woodland walk up to the bridge.

The further interesting thing about this hike is that it follows the path of the glacier as it receded. In the centre of town there is a church tower, classic European city style. The church tower has been there since before the glacier receded, you can see a pic where the glacier comes into town in sight of the tower, right where we've walked circa 1890 the little ice age.

So we're basically walking up the path of the retreating glacier. And the larch trees are a reclamation plant, they're one of the first plants to come back when land becomes available. I learned later they're able to survive the harsh winters because they shed their leaves like deciduous trees in winter to give them less to freeze and their sap is more sugary than other pines too which makes it less prone to freezing.

J had already decided he preferred the below the treeline landscape because it's more lush, less barren up to circa 2500m above sea level? Then you get the alpine meadow kind of landscape to 3000-3500 and then the true alpine like moonscape rocks and snow.

Ok so we get to the suspension bridge through an almost marshy landscape.  There was a couple there psyching themselves up to go on it, so we took pictures of the views and settled there for a while, they went out on the bridge got a quarter of the way out and the husband was like not today Satan and noped back off the bridge. We went on and I swear I could feel the exact spot where he gave up, I mean the bridge is off a cliff but there's a moment where the earth just falls away.

It's a very good single person suspension bridge, lots of handholds, a good two foot width so you can get a good stance, quality Swiss engineering, and I made it across with even being able to look. Down, out, the river below and the gorge, the breadth looking out. I couldn't take pictures because I needed both hands to hold on tho.

The suspension bridge was the target for the day but we wandered on planning to loop a separate way back. We wound up adding an extra hour onto our day that day by walking up to the little glacial garden park. This is a part of the glacier recession walk that takes you all the way to the glacier if you keep going, but it's this little park founded by a local innkeep and geology enthusiast during the 1800s or so right after the glacier retreated. It had these strange like pots carved into the rocks that happen when the glaciers move or more to the point from the water flows that flow under the glaciers. In the middle ages there were stories about them being the tools and households of giants and that makes a lot of sense, they look super machined, manmade from how finished they are. We picniced there and walked back along the bike path, so a super serpentine pathway back through the larch forests, going by lumber mills and little cottages at intervals on the other side of the river from what we came up.