The Matterhorn And The Last Few Days of Training Before Nepal

My Matterhorn hat.

Glorious spring conditions continued on in the Valais until yesterday.   Cherries, my mountain guide, and I, spent the last few weeks exploring the nearby mountains. 

Hiking up the mountains overlooking the River Rhône. 

The Swiss built camouflaged sections in the mountains for the army during the war.

View from Les Blisiers

A very neat pile of wood in Sarreyer.

 Le Levron town placed this bench in the mountain picnic area.

The Matterhorn

Acclimatisation entails going up the mountain and letting your body get used to the altitude slowly.  I certainly didn't need a better excuse than that to go see Zermatt and the Matterhorn! Cherries and I set off from Verbier, via Visp, to the town of Zermatt (all in the Valais canton) at 1620 metres (5310 ft). It's in the southern end of the Matter valley. Though not much higher than Verbier town,  it is surrounded by the high 4000 metre mountains of the Pennine Alps, including the Matterhorn and the Monte Rosa, Switzerland's highest peak at 4634 metres (14,317 ft). It was just the perfect place to do my last training push before leaving next week for the Himalaya.

Overlooking Zermatt village.

Monte Rosa

The village stretch only takes about 20 minutes to go through but it's a quaint and lively town, full of luxury hotels and shops, good restaurants and nightlife.  It is the starting point for the famous Haute Route and Patrouille des Glaciers. The skiing is high and the the views are spectacular.  It  has the Glacier Express which connects Zermatt to St Moritz and has the highest open air railway in Europe which runs up to the Gornergrat at 3,089 metres (10,134 ft). Everything here is about the Matterhorn and tourists flock to Zermatt, from all over the world, to see it.

An Aperol Spritz with a Matterhorn sunset.

Cherries and I decided to go to Zermatt a day earlier than previously scheduled. We knew the weather was going to deteriorate this week in the mountains and I'm so glad we made the change! Arriving Sunday, we managed to have a cocktail a la Matterhorn (everything is named Matterhorn or after the hamlets Zum See or Zmutt).  The view of the mountain certainly doesn't disappoint.

The Matterhorn at sunrise.

The Breithorn.

Walking to the right of the Breithorn.

We played tourist and went up and saw the sights through the resort's extensive cable car network. We hiked to our little summit of about 4,000 metres (13k ft), just right of the Breithorn mountain, overlooking Italy.

Yaaaay.  We got to our little summit of 4000 metres (13k ft).

The grippy snow chains by Snowline are good!

It's that shot of the Matterhorn, of course. 

With Cherries, overlooking the Italian Alps. 

Taking the cable car up to 3000 metres, followed by uphill hiking, is difficult without feeling the immediate effects of altitude. Shortness of breath, rapid heart beat, mild headache, bright and blinding sunlight,  altogether, it feels like an asthma attack with a hangover. But it's well worth it. What views! I just had to remind myself that this is only about the starting altitude of my trek in Nepal.

View of the area from the Klein Matterhorn.

Unfortunately, weather in the mountains is unpredictable and not picture perfect everyday.  I felt so bad for the numerous and slightly wobbly (from altitude) Japanese and Indian tourists who came to see the Matterhorn, after our two days of bright sunshine.  They searched for the mountain but couldn't find it because of cloud cover.  They would just have to make do with the photo below and they must have been very disappointed.

You can just see the base of the mountain behind cloud while you eat the Matterhorn shaped chocolate segments. Oh well, it's still all part of that Swiss experience.