Zermatt 5

Day 6 Funincular

I had wanted to experience some of the alpine landscapes and was fired up by seeing the glacier so we decided to book tickets to the very top of the mountain in what's called Matterhorn glacial paradise. You go up a few stages on a cable car. This is the highest altitude cable car in the world, crossing over the Alps and going into Italy, you can do the border crossing by cable car which is so cool we almost did it.  These things are pricey but we signed up for the like 100 dollar ticket cause I basically said I was not going to be able to get up an alp without it and wanted to get up an alp while I'm in the alps. 

So up we went. The Funincular ride itself was pretty majestic, you are floating above this landscape rising in height for a long time, like an hour and you get a bird's eye view of everywhere we'd been walking and more.  

We went up to Trockener Steg which was the second highest station at about 3000 m which is the true arctic landscape like a moonscape black tumbled rocks and ice. 

So we had some adversity, there was something wrong with the funincular up to the top station, you could see it but they change you to another cable car line and that one couldn't go for some reason that was not clear with the German information offering level. So we hung around at Trockener Steg for a while taking pictures. It was a delightfully clear day, really great views of the Matterhorn and the briethorn with its hood of snow, and views across to the hornli hut where the Matterhorn hikers start their summit attempts, and views down to some of the other huts like the one at the end of the cog railway that goes up a different mountain. 

Jeremy found it so so cold though, like every time the wind blew he was about out. There's a hard line for him that happens like 0-5 degrees like just below where it ever ever gets in Oz and he just checks out like you can't live. I get that way too like weeping cold but it's gotta get a little worse or I can cope better if I have the right clothes or something. 

There was uncertainty that seemed to be leaning to forget about it from the funincular so we took a little walk forward up the road to have a look see, get closer to the glacier, which turned out to be a walk that led right up to the glacier. Like you could get up to it and touch it and walk along it. I've never been to a glacier you were allowed to literally interact with before and it was so cool, so we walked up to it and up into it like 10m.  A glacier is made of ice see so it was kind of no joke you cant walk on it.

 Some of the ultra prepared swiss hikers were, busting out their hiking poles and crampons and marching up the glacier to the Matterhorn glacial paradise and good on them. This is the one place I've ever been where I've looked at the ultra prepared hikers and seen the point, like the tech legitimately allows them to do more, rather than just being fashion. 

All in all it was a little hour up and back to the glaciers and then we had a coffee at the restaurant that was of course there, and walked in the photo point circle one more time and then headed down and nabbed a partial refund. 

We thought about trying to hike down part of the way but decided it was too cold to seem fun and it was just as well as they had closed some other stages of the funincular due to winds by the time we headed down. 

All in all it sort of gave me what I wanted: seeing the true alpine landscapes, being up at alp level surrounded by the alps at eye level, and a big bonus getting to touch a glacier.