Walks

For a gentle day to let my knees recover from Pollux I decided to follow part of the Europaweg which starts at Sunnega (Al chose to climb the Oberrothorn). I took the funnicular from Zermatt to Sunnega at 11:20 a.m. and followed the clearly sign posted path which contours round the hillside. The day was fairly clear, and I had good views back towards the Breithorn chain and the Matterhorn with Zermatt in the foreground, which improved as I continued towards Tuftern. I stopped for lunch shortly after Tuftern, and was able to enjoy my choclate cake with a view, knowing there was no rush today! After lunch I carried on following the path until I reached a path which zig-zagged down through the forest.

The path descended through the forest, and was open despite the forest works going on. Al later told me that was quite surprising, and that the path would have been closed on health and safety grounds had it been in the UK. After a while I came to a place where my path went through a field and then down to the road which joins Tasch and Zermatt. The alternative route would have taken me in to Tasch itself, and had the weather been poor I would have chosen this, and caught a train to Zermatt.

I crossed the road, followed by a bridge over the river. The route then went towards Zermatt, making its way above the railway tracks for most of the way. The path comes in to Zermatt near the pasture in which the goats graze during the day, and I stopped to look at them in the distance for a while before heading down to the train station to do my postcard shopping.

I reached our appartment in Zermatt at 4:00 p.m. having taken just over four hours for the walk. It is an enjoyable route which has good views, and I would highly recommend it.

Al arrived home approximately half an hour after me. His route for the day had also been from Sunnega, however he had walked under the cable car to the Unterrothorn from where he carried on to the Oberrothorn before descending to the Europaweg and then following the track through the forest to Tasch, from where he walked back to Zermatt. All this in four and a half hours, when it should probably take around seven shows the difference in fitness between the two of us this year!

A few days after our adventure on the Matterhorn I decided that I would try a short and gentle walk to finish off the holiday. My leg still hurt if I did not take care of it (an example is when I ran up stairs back in Birmingham, having forgotten about it and my Mum learnt a new word!), but I decided it would be OK for a walk from Sunnega to Stellisee. We headed up on the funnicular just after 11:00 a.m. and made our way under the gondola. The views were a little more hazy than last time we were at Sunnega, however it was still very hot. The going was quite easy and we reached Stellisee at around lunch time. We were disappointed to see that there was an exhibition of "men" made of re-cycled materials at the lake, and so we did not hang around! As we continued past the lake we heard and saw a large rock fall occur above the path below the Stockhorn opposite, and hoped no walkers were on that trail.

The lake as it was on that day can be seen in the lower photo, and the upper one shows the reflection of the Matterhorn in Stellisee taken in 1993. My parents were in Zermatt a few weeks after us this year, and informed me that the "exhibition" had been removed and the lake was back to its former beauty. We stopped by a hut just above the lake for our lunch, and then called in to the hut for a beer.

After luch we made our way back past Stellisee, and then followed the path which leads to Zermatt via Eggen, Findeln and Winkelmatten. We stopped at the Mexican Restaurant in Zermatt for a beer, and returned later for our evening meal, which was thoroughly enjoyed. Regarding places to eat, during our time in Zermatt I ate at the Stadel on the main street a number of times, and I can highly recommend their food which comes in large quantities and tastes excellent, especially their specialities. I returned there on the Thursday for my last evening meal with Al before we parted company.

Our time in Zermatt was thorougly enjoyable. Despite my not being as fit as Al might have wanted we both had a thoroughly enjoyable holiday. Al plans to return to Zermatt another year to reach the top of the Matterhorn. I, on the other hand am not sure. I have not been put off climbing in any way by our experience on the Matterhorn, and have been out several times since. I am happy that we were close enough to the summit, and belive there are still plenty of other safer and more enjoyable, if not more shapely summits to be climbed in the Alps.