Zermatt, Valais, Switzerland
My first full day in Zermatt dawned spectacularly sunny. I
decided to make the best of it by taking the Gornergrat Railroad from town to
the top, for a princely one-way sum of 49 Francs. Nothing is cheap in Zermatt!
The Gornergrat Railroad is one of those old-fashioned cog railways that ascends
the mountain at an unusually steep pitch. There are several stops on the way
up, but the final one is at 3,089 meters. That’s over 10,000 feet and actually somewhat
higher than any of the passes I crossed on my 12 days on the Haute Route. With
a slightly higher hotel and a viewpoint just above that, the Gornergrat overlooks
the huge Gorner Glacier spilling down from the row of some of the highest peaks
in the Alps along the Swiss/Italian border. Monte Rosa (or Dufourspitze in
German) is actually several hundred feet higher than the Matterhorn, but its
massive ice-covered bulk isn’t quite as elegant or famous as the other’s unique
rocky spike.
Beside Monte Rosa, the other 4,000+ meter peaks in view are
Liskamm, Breithorn, Castor & Pollux, Strahlhorn, Taschhorn and several
others. It’s naturally a very popular place, the highlight for daytrippers to
Zermatt on whirlwind European tours all visit, especially the Asian ones.
It costs another 49 francs to ride the train down, so I decided
to walk all the way back to Zermatt, again a descent of something like 4,500
feet, but it was absolutely stunning with the Matterhorn in view ahead the
entire way. The descent was actually a quite easy one compared with many steep
rocky ones I encountered on the Haute Route with a well-beaten trail all the
way.
2025-05-23