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After a pretty sleepless night in the overcrowded Rifugio, we got up
just past 5:00. Breakfast was minimalistic, rusk with honey, jam and
Nutella. At least they had good hot chocolate. Sunrise was very pretty
and we left at 6:45 since we wanted to take an early look at the
glacier before deciding whether to do it on our own.
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Irene standing in front of the Matterhorn and the Rifugio del
Teodulo. We traversed the snow ramp in the picture and from there it
was very easy to descend onto the ski slope that runs along the
glacier. It had been cold enough for the snow cover to freeze and
there were a lot of footsteps visible from the previous day. Since the
only visible clouds were in the Mattertal quite a bit below us and
they seemed stable, we decided to cross the glacier on our own.
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We got a closer look at the Breithorn and Kleines Matterhorn from the
Theodulglacier.
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After about 1.5 kilometers the TMR turns away from the ski slope. It
was quite easy to follow the path due to the large number of footsteps
on the glacier. 35 minutes after we started we arrived on the rocky
ridge visible on the right which leads down to Trockener Steg.
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Me in front of the Theodulglacier and the Matterhorn.
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Breithorn and Kleines Matterhorn with the Theodulglacier in the foreground.
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The clouds over the Mattertal started to clear as soon as we entered
them so we got some nice views going down.
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The trail follows the Furgg creek for a while and offers a view of
Gornerglacier and the Monte Rosa range. Fortunately we only learned
later from a Swiss hiker that 'Furggs' are monsters that camouflage as
rocks and eat hikers that do not make it to shelter in time for the
night, so we continued along the creek cheerfully :)
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Here we saw our first Edelweiss of the trip. Well, first in the wild,
the host of the Rifugio G. Oberto at the Moropass had some in a flower
pot. There was also a bunch of Marmots but since neither of us carried a
telephoto lens...
We took a short break and had some sugary drinks, Rivella and Coke, at
a cute little Restaurant called Hermetje. Going down this much started
to tax our legs a bit, especially given that the day before had been
quite long as well.
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Just above Zermatt, there is an old cluster of houses in Blatten. Too
bad they put some satellite dishes up. The mountain on the right in
the background is the Täschhorn.
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Most of the old houses are built on stilts which are topped off with a
flat rock plate. I am not sure why, perhaps it is to ward off
mice.
We made it to Zermatt at 11:45 and managed to get a printed list of
bed and breakfasts with free rooms just before the tourist office took
its lunch break. The weather forecast for the following day was a bit
mixed, they were expecting rain during the night and part of the next
day. We found a decent looking bed and breakfast in the list, the Hotel and Restaurant Grill
Stockhorn. It was in a quiet central location but not on the
bustling main road. Our room was very nice and, given that it was
Zermatt, the price of 115 CHF for two including breakfast was ok.
We had a very good pizza in the Walliserhof in town, bought some food
for the evening and went back for a well-deserved afternoon nap.
Due to the unstable weather forecast we booked for two nights and
decided to stay in Zermatt for one day.
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