Hiking Zermatt on a beautiful day

We woke up to doom and gloom. Yesterday, we trudged around Zermatt in the rain, getting soaked all the way through to the skin. We were worried about a second day in a row of rain. It was so dreary that we started to look at maps to see if we should bail on Zermatt and head to northern Italy.

But then, right as we were about to call a hotel in Lake Como, the sun started poking through the clouds. It took about 20 minutes for the clouds to completely disappear. So we threw on our hiking clothes, Cam planned the route, and we were off.

Thank goodness we stayed and didn't go to Italy. This is the weather we had at lunch:

These are the signs you see at trail junctions. As you can see, there are LOTS of trails to choose from. A veritable Hiker's Paradise. Cam chose a great route: the Arvenweg to start, with a 2,000 foot vertical climb over 2.5 miles. Then lunch, followed by a hike on the Natureweg trail that was relatively flat and beautiful over its 4 mile route.

Our first climb was in the shade, and the foliage still had snow clinging to it from the night before:

After our vigorous walk up the switchbacks, we were hungry and found this wonderful restaurant in Riffelalp:

This was the view of the Matterhorn from our lunch table. Postcard perfect, with a little wisp of snow blowing off the top. The food was so good, it was on par with the view:

Cam found a little patch of Eidelweiss:

After lunch, we had a beautiful hike with sun on our backs and clean air in our lungs:

The sky was a constantly changing water color painting:

The Matterhorn looks like a giant great white shark's tooth, right?

We found a nice little mossy hillside:

And a clear glacial lake. Here is Cam on a little raft, pulling herself across the lake:

After our hike, we went to Anjan Truffer's house. He is an old friend of Pete and Judy's. A professional mountain guide, he is also on the emergency rescue team in Zermatt. He gets calls 24 hours a day, a needs to report to the helicopter with all of his gear within 10 minutes of the call. He'll get a call at 2am, then get lifted up to the Matterhorn, and have to find and then help stranded or injured climbers. He said in one week, he got 15 calls (with the majority occurring in July-August, which is when all of the rookies who overestimate their abilities do the climb). In one bad week, he had to pull seven dead climbers off the mountain. Here he is, with his very cute 4 year old son:

After drinks at Anjan's, we went to have dinner at CERVO once again. He told us about a shortcut behind his house. All it requires was scaling a steep field of grass and trespassing in a another person's yard:

Zermatt at night:

Overall, Zermatt was great. Now we are off to Chamonix to see how the French do the Alps.