After my examination of the guide handed to me by the lady in the tourist office, I decided that Wednesday's activity would consist of a lift to Schwarzsee Paradise (a small lake at 2583 meters), and then a hike up to the Hornlihutte (3260 meters), the hut/restaurant at the base of the Matterhorn where climbing trips to the summit commence. While I would not technically be able to say that I "climbed to the base of the Matterhorn from Zermatt", it was estimated as a 2 hour 20 minute trip up and about an hour and a half down. This seemed like a good enough start.
When I woke up, I was cold and tired, and felt unmotivated. I had gone out later than planned, slept less. I crawled out of bed, and made myself a peanut butter sandwich to give me energy for the day, and packed my back with snacks and my "Warm Clothes" (scarf, gloves, hat, jacket), and through on a long sleeve shirt over my new wool undershirt.
Thanks to my Swiss half-off pass, the lift to Schwarzsee Paradise only cost about 35 bucks (!). Once there, I remembered that I had not yet had any coffee for the day, and walked to the hotel there (there's some sort of "hotel" everywhere in the Alps, it seems) and bought a hot coffee. There was a clear view of the Matterhorn, even at this point.
As usual, the first few minutes of the hike were rough, as my muscles got used to the uphill, and as I removed layers of clothes. About 15 minutes up, I was drinking a Red Bull and a group of three German hikers made a comment to me in German about how "Red Bull Gives You Wings" (I caught the word "Flugel" in there), I explained that I didn't speak German, and thus began a 2.5 hour exercise in communication using very, very basic English (for instance, when one asked me what I do for work, the answers "lawyer" and "attorney" were completely uncomprehended, and of course I know about 5 words in German). These guys were great though. One (Hansy) offered me one of his poles (made hiking much easier), another (Patty) makes jokes about his affinity for Fidel Castro, as well as the Austrian governor of California (they loved it when I told them he is called the "Governator"), and the third (Tomas) made fun of the other two for being old (these guys were all between 15 and 35 years older than me). The scenery on the way up was beautiful, as expected: great views of 4000 + meter peaks, covered in snow, the town of Zermatt way below. The most challenging aspect was the portion of the train covered with frozen over ice -- we had to hold on tight to a rope attached to the mountain to avoid slipping off. The second most challenging aspect was the steepness of he ascent, but these guys seemed to be in roughly the same shape that I'm in. Here's a photo from the trail:
At the top, we gave each other high fives, drank beer, and took pictures of the Matterhorn and of the view below. Here is a picture of the Matterhorn from close up:
Here's me in front of it:
My German friends:
A view of other Swiss peaks:
We actually made really good time coming up, just around 2 hours, which was 20 minutes faster than the projected pace, this even with several stops to catch breath and drink water.
The way down was much easier and much faster. Here's a spot from a scenic spot (we each only have one pole, because I'm borrowing mine from him):
I said goodbye in Zermatt, and they wished me luck that for my hike tomorrow I would meet three young German girls instead of three old German guys.
And the evening was more or less a repeat of the previous, with the exception that for dinner I ate a McDonalds Big Mac and a dried sausage from a local store. The New Zealander and I (the Swiss had left) went to the Papperla Pub again, hung out with the Dutch bartenders, met up with the Belgian guy and two Australians from the hostel, as well as an American from Florida, were given free shots of jager, drank a few pitchers of beer, and migrated to the Broken Bar. Where we danced until 2 again.
One more fact: walking around Zermatt at night was COLD. Even with my wimpy looking gloves on, I found the short distances between these bars to be painful! And it was probably only in the high 30s.
Yeasayer -- Ambling Alp
No comments:
Post a Comment