Francois' Vacation


We took a one-week vacation to the real high mountains of Switzerland starting last Saturday. This is the reason why I haven't participated since then. I'll try to post some pictures as our vacations proceed.

Saturday: Glacier Express


On Saturday, we boarded the Glacier Express to take us from Chur to Zermatt. It had still rained a bit on Friday, but on Saturday morning, we woke up to a cloudless blue sky.

First, we needed to board the local narrow-gauge train:



back to Chur. The train took us through the Ruinaulta, the gorge of the Rhine river:





In Chur, we switched to the Glacier Express:



a tourist train:



with panoramic windows:



Here a view out the window at the lake of the Oberalppass (Alpsu), a reservoir lake at an altitude of 2000 m.a.s.

There are many reservoir lakes in Switzerland:



many of them even accompanied by pump storage power stations. Switzerland buys surplus French electricity at a low rate during the night, when France uses less power and uses that electricity to pump water up into the reservoir lakes. It lets that water flow down into the turbines again during day-time hours, and sells electricity back to France at a much higher rate. This makes sense, because France produces almost its entire electricity from nuclear power stations that don't do load following very well, i.e., those power stations produce a fixed amount of electricity at all times.

Here some pictures out of the train up at the Alpsu:





As it rained at our place the previous day, it had snowed down to 1800 m.a.s. Yet, by the time we passed the Alpsu, the snow had already melted away again, and only the higher peaks were still a bit sugary.

Here another picture of the lake at the Alpsu.



It's a very picturesque trip.

The train passes through the Gotthard region, the center of Switzerland, where many of the major streams of Europe have their sources: the Rhine, the Ticino, the Aare, the Reuss, and the Rhone rivers all start in that region. From the Canton of Grisons, we passed quickly into the Canton of Uri at Andermatt, and then, using a new tunnel under the Furca mountain, into the Canton of Valais.

Here a picture of the Rhone river flowing down from the Furca westward:



In Brig, most passengers left, and the train was almost empty for the final hour of the trip:

As the slope gets stepper, the train uses a third cog wheel:



The first real mountains are popping up in the distance:





The Matternvispa, the river coming down from Zermatt:



Here, the land slide of Randa:



that closed off the valley entirely in 1991. A large amount of material had come down from the Zinalrothorn:



Zermatt is already past Peak Oil. No cars are allowed into that village. Tourists arriving by car need to park their car in the next village down-valley (Täsch) and board the local shuttle train for a ride up to Zermatt, located at 1600 m.a.s.

In the village, only electric cars are allowed, including the taxis:



The "house mountain" of Zermatt was still where we left it when we had visited Zermatt last:



It is evening now, time to go to sleep.

Sunday: Gornergrat


On Sunday morning, we woke up to a partly cloudy sky. Yet, the weather forecast was quite decent, and so, we decided to visit Gornergrat.

Thus, we boarded another narrow-gauge train:



that took us up from 1600 m.a.s. to 3000 m.a.s.:



On the way up, the high mountains and glaciers started to appear on the horizon:



Here the Breithorn (Broadhorn). From Zermatt, only the Matterhorn is visible. The other mountains cannot be seen, because they hide behind the steep slopes on both sides of the valley.

The higher up we traveled, the more "narrow-gauge" the trains became:



In spite of the clouds, the views were magnificent. Here the two twins (Castor and Pollux):



To the left of them, the Lyskamm with the magnificent Grenzgletscher (frontier glacier) further to the left:



The Italian border passes along the ridges of these mountains (Breithorn, Pollux, Castor, Lyskamm). To the left of the Grenzgletscher, we meet the Monte Rosa, the tallest mountain of Switzerland (4633 m.a.s.):



but all of these mountains are taller than 4000 meters. Switzerland has 40-some peaks that are higher than 4000 meters, and almost 30 of them can be seen from the surroundings of Zermatt.

In the 1960s, the Grenzgletscher was about 100 meters higher than now. The lake visible on the above picture didn't exist; the Gornergletscher to the left of the Monte Rosa connected to the Grenzgletscher much higher up, and the Monte Rosa glacier in front of the Monte Rosa mountain, which has almost entirely melted by now, connected also to the other two glaciers.

Here is an excerpt of the above picture:



On it, you see almost in the center of the picture the (old) Monte Rosa hut, a hospice maintained for mountaineers who wished to climb the Dufour point (the highest point of Switzerland) the next day. The Monte Rosa hut was easy to reach. You hiked over the Gornergletscher and the Grenzgletscher (with a guide!!), and at the end, you climbed up a short ladder of about 10 meters length. By now, the glacier is more than 100 meters below the hut, and the hut has meanwhile been given up.

Instead, a new Monte Rosa hut has opened in March 2010:



You can see it a little higher up and further to the left on the previous picture.

According to an article in the Tagblatt of Zurich, the new Monte Rosa hut was built by ETH Zurich and the Swiss Alpine Club (SAC). The new hut has 120 beds and generates most of the energy that it needs locally from solar power (both photovoltaics and solar thermal power).

Quote:

The higher up we traveled, the more "narrow-gauge" the trains became:

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On the opposite (Western) side of the Mattern valley, we see the Dent Blanche (the name is French, because the language border is quite close). To the right, the Gabelhorn and the Zinalrothorn are a bit in the clouds:



Also the Matterhorn still wears a hat:



As we walked around on the Gornergrat, the weather continued to improve. Here another picture of the Lyskamm:



and even the Dufour point finally came out of the clouds:



To the right of the Breithorn, we see the Little Matterhorn (more about that later) and to the right of it the Theodulgletscher:



We were not the only visitors on the Gornergrat that morning:



Here a Capricorn, an Alpine longhorn sheep.

These two gentlemen:



seem to be a bit bored.

We then decided to hike down, rather than take the train:



We saw many beautiful flowers on the way, like this set of saxifrages:



As we reached Riffelberg, we were able to see the Mattern valley again from a bird's eye's perspective:



More tomorrow ...

utterly stunning.

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Monday: Little Matterhorn


On Monday morning, we woke up to cloudless blue skies.



A gorgeous day. Thus we knew, this was the day to visit the Little Matterhorn.

We first took a cable car:



up to Schwarzsee (black lake):



located at an altitude of 2500 m.a.s. at the foot of the Matterhorn:



In the center, you can easily discern a hut, but there is a second much larger hut that is harder to see. It is a white spot a little to the right and a little above the obvious hut in the center. That hut is the Hörnli hut, located at an altitude of 3200 m.a.s., where the mountaineers usually sleep before climbing the mountain.

They get up at 2 a.m. and start climbing no later than 4 a.m. Most of them move up along the Hörnli ridge, to the right of the hut. It is important to reach the top by 10 a.m., so that the climbers can be back at the Hörnli hut no later than 2 p.m.

The reason is that, as the sun shines on the mountain, the ice melts, and rocks start falling down. Thus, it is too dangerous to be on the mountain in the afternoon hours.

Yet, every would-be mountaineer should first visit the graveyard of Zermatt:



where each stone tells a similar story. The mountains aren't our friends!

Schwarzsee:



is a lovely spot, above the tree line (at 2200 m.a.s. in the Valais), but green and lush and soft.

Here a view of the Zmutt valley with the Dent Blanche in the background:



and a view back to Zermatt, below the Dom and the Täschhorn:



We then boarded the cable car again to move further up to the Trockene Steg (dry path), located at an altitude of 3000 m.a.s.:



I had been at that place last in the summer of 1993, 17 years ago. At that time, this place was beaming with activity. It was one of the most easy places to get to here in Europe for summer skiing. You stepped off the platform, and you were already on the Theodul glacier. There were ski-lifts left and right. Now, the place is totally deserted. The glacier has retreated by almost a kilometer, there is no longer any summer skiing, and even the restaurant was closed due to a lack of customers. In the background, again the Matterhorn, now from a different perspective. Only the Eastern slope is visible from here.

The place looks like a Martian landscape. Not even moss or lichens had time to grow, and so, everything is dead:



and yet, the place is fascinating and actually beautiful in a weird kind of way.

We then boarded another cable car:



for the last ride up to the Little Matterhorn, visible behind the gondola.

A last view back to the moonscape of the Trockene Steg:



and here we are:



at 3883 m.a.s., the highest spot in Europe reachable by cable car, face-to-face with the biggest mountains of the Alps:



Here the Breithorn (4184 m.a.s.).

Mountaineering used to be a sport for a few crazies. Now, it has become an occupation of the masses. The path up to the Breithorn looks like an ant road:



and it is actually quite easy to do. The trip from the Little Matterhorn to the Breithorn takes two hours back and forth.

Yet, the views are truly breathtaking:



Here, the Roccia Nera (4075 m.a.s.) and Pollux (4098 m.a.s.) to the East.

To the West:



we see the Matterhorn / Mont Cervin / Monte Cervino (4476 m.a.s.) and to the left of it the Dent d'Hérens (4075 m.a.s.).

The language changes, because the Italian border passes along the top of all of these mountains, and the language border between the Swiss-German speaking upper part of the Valais and the French-speaking lower part of the Valais is quite near.

A little further in the back the Mont Blanc:



already located in France, with 4810 m.a.s. the highest spot of Europe.

To the North, we see the Bernese Alps:



with Mönch (4107 m.a.s.), Jungfrau (4158 m.a.s.), and the Aletschhorn (4193 m.a.s.).

Whereas summer skiing has ended on the Trockene Steg, it is now available at the Little Matterhorn, 800 meters higher:



At the horizon, there is Gobba di Rollin, one of the Italian stations.

Also easily reachable on skis is Testa Grigia:



another Italian station that is also reachable by cable car from the township below: Breuil (Cervinia), visible on the picture to the right of Testa Grigia.

This part of Italy is French-speaking, and therefore, most places have French names, but the Italian government is pushing Italian, and therefore, these places have also Italian names, and schooling is nowadays primarily done in Italian, rather than in French, which is a pity, because the Italian Piemonte is the only place left that still speaks an Eastern dialect of the Langue d'Oc (the Occitan language).

Until about 200 years ago, the South of France spoke a different version of French (Langue d'Oc) than the North (Langue d'Oil), but the Southern variety has almost died out. There is only one place in France (Roussignol) that still speaks a Western Occitanian dialect, and there is the Italian Piemonte, where a version of an Eastern Occitanian dialect has been preserved.

The dialect spoken in Roussignol is actually much closer to Catalan than to modern French, whereas the language of the Piemonte is closer to the Lumbaard (Lombardic) language still spoken in the Ticino (the "Italian"-speaking Southern part of Switzerland) than to modern French.

You could think that we are in the middle of winter:



For the amusement of the public, the Little Matternhorn also features an Ice Palace:







It offers a little bit of kitch for every gusto, including the tourists from India:



Enough for today. More to follow tomorrow.