Rothorn & Klein Matterhorn

Sunrise but not quite

From my room I could catch a corner of the Matterhorn and it looked a nice orange colour half hour after the 0530 sunrise.  I hadn’t wanted to climb to the viewpoint about 15 mins away at this time but I changed my mind.

By the time I reached the Murini Lane platform, the light was a more regular white light but still bright and cloudless.  While it was much better than yesterday, I didn’t realise that I would have better views during the rest of my explorations in the area.

I took breakfast when it opened at 0700 and to my surprise, my room had already been cleaned upon my return.

Rothorn

My first paid outing for the day was to Rothorn.  This is accessed via a funicular which I had trouble locating due to flaws with Google Maps.  It was shown as beside the road that was on the shoulder of the hill when it was in fact accessed from the lower level road.  From the entry, one walks inside a tunnel to get to the train which then runs completely inside a tunnel to Sunnega.

Here I connected to a large intermittent cable car to Rothorn.  Here I had a good view of Matterhorn and there were possibilities of hikes.  Some the hikes were too long for my half-day allocated up here, and others strangely had no time estimates on them.

After taking some photos, I returned back down to the street level and walked about 20 mins to get to the cable car that goes up to Klein Matterhorn or Glacier Paradise.

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Klein Matterhorn

This outing began with a ride in a continuous cable car that was a little larger than some.  I shared it with a French guy (and his mountain bike) who calls it an “egg” in English.  I suppose, the smaller ones are egg-shaped.  He got off part-way while I continued to Trockener Steig where I had my closest and best view of the Matterhorn.

There was an information area showing the cable car from Klein Matterhorn (next stop up) to Testa Grigia in Italy.  The various signage including last departure time have already been made up but it’s not operational till later this year, at the earliest.

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Continuing up to Klein Matterhorn, it was a large continuous cable car, which is quite unusual.  So far, all the large ones have been intermittent scheduled rides but I guess the traffic here warrants it with many skiers (yes, it is summer right now).

Reaching Klein Matterhorn at 1200, we exited into a tunnel led to several areas.  My first stop was to the viewing platform accessed by lift.  Here I could look across to a very close-by peak Breithorn, the ski fields below, Zermatt and Italy.

Next, I took a walk through a tunnel carved inside the glacier.  There were crevasses in the ceiling of the tunnel.

Finally, I exited the tunnel at one end to the skifield and had a brief walk on the snow.  Having done all that, I returned straight down to street level.  I had completed everything that I had planned to do in the highlands.

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Recommendations

In terms of the things I’d recommend the most in Zermatt, it would probably be Klein Matterhorn.  While it costs more than the others, it’s truly spectacular.  Close behind would be the Gornergrat. I would give Rothorn a miss; it is too much of the same for people with limited interest or funds.

How do these compare with the sights I saw out of Brig (the Aletsch Glacier) or Wengen (Grindelwald, Schilthorn, Gimmelwald, Lauterbrunnen valley)?  Well, Klein Matterhorn and Gornergrat would probably beat all those things I did in Brig and Wengen.  So it is good I saved the best for last.

However, I did nice hikes out of Brig and Wengen and those were beautiful in their own right.  Just taking a cable car up to the best view possible isn’t the real experience.

What I’ve learnt on this trip is that nowhere is truly remote in Switzerland.  Trains and cable cars take hordes of people everywhere high and low.  You have to share your encounter with nature with other people, unlike say, in New Zealand.