When heading to the Swiss Alps, we knew that the Matterhorn would be a must-see and so on our second day in Zermatt we decided to give it a go and hike as much as we could of the 'Mountain of Mountains.' Starting from the main part of town we hiked up the Edelweissweg trail to the small village of Zmuttgletscher. This was a pretty reasonable climb already up a deep glacial valley so we took the opportunity to rest our legs a bit in the village and grabbed an espresso to wash down our homemade PB&Js. From here we hiked another hour or so to a mid-mountain gondola. The weather was turning a bit nasty and we were still right around the treeline so we decided to hop a ride on the gondola to higher elevations. The lift took us way up the mountain where, by the time we got off, it was super cold and rainy. Luckily we had packed for bad weather so we threw on every layer we had and hiked out into the cold on the Matterhorn Glacier Trail.
This trail had everything we were hoping for when coming to this part of Switzerland! We were high enough in the alps to be looking down (!) at nearby glaciers. Despite the rain we were having a blast and told stories to keep our mind off the dropping temperatures. The clouds around us were moving quickly which meant that different parts of the surrounding valleys would come in and out of view every few minutes. There was one point when Zermatt - waaaay below us now - was lit up by some sunshine that found a break in the clouds. Best part about the bad weather - there was almost no one else on the trail which was especially great in the steep and narrow sections where you seriously had to watch every step. Had we been on a real climbing expedition with all the gear to get us to the summit we likely would have made the Hornli Hut our destination for the day's hike. This hut is one of the main base camps for Matterhorn climbers at 3,260 meters - the summit by the way is 4,480 meters and requires a full getup of mountaineering gear to reach safely. Anyways, since we were doing an out-and-back hike, we took the trail all the way to around 2,950 meters where it crossed one of the Matterhorn's main ridges giving us an epic view of the Zermatt Glacier and the mighty valley that it was still carving out on the north side of the peak. Sitting on this ridge, looking out on such an incredible landscape was definitely one of the major high points from any of our travels together. Nevermind that it was raining or that our toes were freezing cold, we had a good hike behind us, a handful of peanut M&Ms and a glacier to gawk at.... doesn't get much better than that.
