Map
Zermatt is a resort town, and so there are plenty of cable cars that can take you up to the tops of the mountains in minutes.
I instead wanted to climb up - so I set out very early.
My goal was the Hornli Hut, the highest you can get without needing real climbing gear.
The trail was surprising quiet - I didn’t see another person until getting up to the cable car station.
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Make sure to bring some chocolate.
Continuing on past the cable car station, there is an area called the “Glacier Paradise”, which concerning had no glaciers anywhere.
You could see where they used to be. The missing glaciers in Switzerland is one of the things that stayed with me most. Holes bigger than mountains.
Theres a pretty spectacular ridgeline up here.
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The final climb was admittedly a bit more steep and icy than I was expecting.
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Made it up
They were actually rescuing people from the top of the mountain when I got up there. Apparently it was icy for everyone.
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One of the rescuers jumped off and ran over to me to have me take a picture of him by his helicopter.
I continued up to the first vertical section to touch the base.
I’ll have to return better prepared to get to the summit someday. For now, it was back down.
I was tempted by the cable car this time, but stuck to my mission of the full hike.
Down the other side of the valley there were even better views of the mountain, as well as Zermatt down below.
This hike ended up being around 20 miles with plenty of elevation, so definitely take the cable car if you’re not used to that kind of thing.
My next stop was a certain valley up near Interlaken, but a random detour lead me somewhere amazing: Oeschinensee.