Hello all from Zermatt, Switzerland! I haven't been able to find an internet cafè with USB upload capability here, so I'm not able to post any new pictures. When I can, I will - we have some great ones from the last few days. Just keep checking back.
I made the mother of all boneheaded moves in Luzern. I left our Swiss Railpass in my pants when we brought them to the laundry. A few hours later, it was a soggy mess. I thought we were royally screwed. I spent some time with a tweezers and scotch tape, and managed to resurrect it to somewhat legible form. So far, no grief from rail conducters, at least.
The train ride from Luzern to Zermatt was breathtaking. I stood at our window with my head out gaping at the scenery most of the time. When we finally caught a glimpse of the Matterhorn as we pulled into Zermatt at the end, I went into full-blown tourist mode: "Oooh, ahhh!"
Yesterday we made a 12 km / 1100m vertical hike to Schönbielhütte, a mountain hut northwest of the Matterhorn operated by the Swiss Alpine Club. It was really an incedible experience: close up against the Matterhorn, surrounded by glaciers, hearing marmots whistle and glaciers groan and pop, and in the company of numerous German & French speaking mountaineers. It was well worth the somewhat strenuous hike there and back.
We're spending tonight at another mountain hut, Fluhalp. A funicular and cable car takes care of most of the elevation, so the hike there should be pretty easy...thankfully given my knee and Dawn's hip after the last hike. I've been taking Glucosemine-Chrondritin since I hurt my knee last but it's not 100% yet. I'm not sure how much more serious hiking I'll be able to do this trip.
Tomorrow we make the length journey to Gimmelwald, a small village high in the mountains near the Jungfrau. I understand that the hostel there has computers with internet access, hopefully I can upload some more pictures from the last few days.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comments:
Does Zermatt still not allow cars on it's streets?
When I was there in high school, back in 85 or 86, we went skiing and there'd been very little snow. One of our chaperones had been a ski instructor and thought those of us who had never skied could handle the one run that was open. I was going down hill and hit a patch of ice, hit my head on the ice. I was out cold.
Well, the ski patrol put me on a sled, tied the sled to his waist with rope, skied down, put me on a stretcher and loaded the stretcher in the ski lift gondola. At the bottom I got to ride in the ambulance to the hospital. I had a concussion.
At that point, Zermatt had four cars: an ambulance, a fire truck, a police car and I believe the police chief had a personal car. That was it. And I got to ride in one of them. :)
Beautiful town, BTW!
Post a Comment