Today is the day that we head as far up in altitude that we can go short of climbing the Matterhorn itself. As usual, in Zermatt, this means hopping onto a combination of gondolas. Our route started going up over trees heading towards Furi station. Then switching gondolas, it continued over a ridge and very rugged terrain before arriving at Trockener Steg station where we ate an easy lunch.

For the final climb, another gondola took us to Klein Matterhorn, riding out over snow fields and glaciers. At the top, it feels like nothing can be higher (except the Matterhorn which is 595 m / 1,953 ft higher than we were). Heading out of the station, one walks onto a snow-packed ridge that is full of skiers and walkers. Further along the ridge, a glacial ski area begins with 21 km of pistes. There are not that many places where one can ski year-round like they do here. You can look down onto the French side to see another station and more of the ski area.

The Matterhorn is famous for its easily recognizable sharp peak. This profile is visible on three sides of the mountain (which we saw all three during the week). But for some reason, from the French side, while still visible as a massive rugged peak, it doesn’t seem to have the same distinctive profile.

I do recall when I visited the area several decades ago that my friend and I did some spring skiing on a glacier. But thinking back, I believe it was a different glacier. To access the slopes, it only had a T-bar run (i.e. no chairlift or gondola - one had to literally ski up the slope with a bar pushing you along). Turns out I don’t do T-bars well and had some ‘interesting’ experiences on the bar during that trip. Luckily, as is tradition in Switzerland, all huts seem to be required to have a bar at the top of major runs. I remember taking advantage of that to help get over some very embarrassing moments 😀.

Back to this trip - after looking around on top and stopping for a cup of hot chocolate, we headed back down on the gondola to Trockener Steg where we began our hike down the Glacier Trail. The trail started out across a very barren landscape down to a lake nestled in the basin’s rocks, up over a ridge that was rich in red stone, and then into a large open area below the Matterhorn peak itself. If you look at the photos, the ridge that goes up the right side of the Matterhorn is the primary climbing route. There is even a small hut partway up the climb.

After passing another lake in this last open area, the trail follows along the side of a barren valley with a stream running down from the snow fields above. On the other side of the valley, the end of the glacier peeks out from under piles of rubble and stone, showing patches of ice with water running out from under it all. One of the photos included here shows the Matterhorn on the right side above the water flowing out from under the ice/snow/rock fields. Unfortunately, if you haven’t been there, it is hard to grasp the enormity of it all.

Climbing up above the valley, we crossed a ridge with one of the winter chair lifts at the top (not in operation during the summer). There we found a Sri Chinmoy International Peace-Blossoms post. Sri Chinmoy Kumar Ghose was an Indian spiritual teacher and philosopher. This Matterhorn location is just one of over 800 Sri Chinmoy Peace Markers dedicated to the goal of peace, found in 50 nations around the world. I have included a link in case you are curious.

Heading down the other side back towards Zermatt, we were able to see the Schwarzee gondola station way below us. Even further nestled in the bottom of the valley, we could see Zermatt. During this part of the hike, the weather had turned chilly with some scattered showers here and there. Once at the gondola, none of us had any desire to do anything but have a nice ride back to town with a single gondola change back at Furi station.