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Zermatt is a pretty small town, not a city. The restaurants fill up. Far more crowds here than on the lift lines. |
This place is massive as it comes three different mountains with the weather-affected ability to ski over to Italy and Cervinia. My ski days have not been that long as I get worn out pretty quickly, but wow, this place is amazing. Last year, I skied Zurs and Lech and related areas, and that seemed big and extensive. This place has way more height and breadth--something like 50 lifts across the two countries.
Mid mountain cafe/restaurant for a much needed breather and hot chocolate. |
Like last year, they haven't gotten a ton of snow lately,
but there is more softer stuff here than last year at Zurs. Still, lots of hardpack, some ice, which makes the steep stuff a bit more daunting, and invokes the old skills I learned in the mountains of Pennsylvania--how to use one's edges to ski on ice. Over the course of the week, the conditions improved and I got better at avoiding the iciest areas, so I strained my legs less and lasted longer each day.
I was eager to get over to the Italian side on my first day because weather often interrupts that connection, and my basic skiing desire is to ski as much of a place as I can--a FOMO on skis, if you will. I got to the gondola early--first one, and as I remarked to a bunch of Americans who were behind me, best to wait 30 minutes in the front of the line than 30 minutes in the back of the line. It took about 40 minutes to get to the top, and required not just the gondola stopping several times at stops along the way, but another, much bigger gondola to get to the very top. So high that the Materhorn was mostly next to rather than above us.
The view of Italy from the top of Cervinia's slopes |
So many restaurants and cafes all over these mountains. So, I stopped off at one near a lift on the Italian side and had a monster slice of pizza--it was thick and wide and pretty tasty. I took my time as I was pretty tired. When I ski Whistler or Lake Louise, I tend not to go top-to-bottom, usually just skiing part of the mountain. So, two top-to-bottom runs took a lot out of me. Just amazing views and some fun terrain along the way. I then grabbed a series of lifts to get me back to Switzerland (I ended up paying an extra day of roaming since my phone was in Italy and Switzerland). I then started skiing down the Matterhorn Glacier Paradise--well named as it is indeed a glacier and is a skier's paradise. It was here where I made my only mistake--I ended up at the wrong lift, so I had to go up a small one (next to a nice slalom run that tempted me, but I was too tired--but I did that my last day, see below), and then took the gondola back to the bottom. I was just too tired to ski out.
Ski train at the top of Gornergrat, a working observatory is at the peak |
Wow, that was long. Well, I will be faster about days 2-4. Day two started with the ski train--yes, a train that exists to go up to the top of Gornegrat, which is the middle peak on the Zermatt side. There were good runs that took me halfway down and then I wanted to check out the next peak over--Rothorn. It was a long run, mostly fun, a bit of annoying narrow traverses. But I was glad to do it, as Rothorn has some of the best cruisers. Also, I found a great restaurant/bar along the way that had great hot chocolate and a sweet dog awaiting guests. Skiing out at the end was fun. The weather that day and the next closed the border with Italy (the lifts more than the border). We didn't get as much snow as I had hoped.
That night, I couldn't get into my first choice restaurant, so I went to a Swiss place. The guys next to me were speaking English, and then when I heard "Trudeau," I realized they are Canadians. Turns out they are based in Manotick, the town next to my suburb, the one I go biking through for bice cream. I kept bumping into these guys--once the third day on the furnicular and once on the fourth day at the gondola station on the Matterhorn glaciar. Similar bumpings happened with a Canadian I met this morning who ended up at the same restaurant for lunch on the Italian side and with some young French women who were on the gondola this morning and then at thesame bar on the run out at the end of the day. Zermatt is both big and small? Oh, I bumped into the Americans who waited with me on day 1 at the gondola before it opened at a cafeteria in the middle of Gornergrat on day 2.
Day three was the reverse of day two--I started on Rothorn and then went to Gornergrat. I just liked the runs at the top of Rothorm so much. I explored more of the middle including finding a village I skied through. I also found a restaurant that had its own trail to access it that had some great hot chocolate and a wonderful apricot strudel. I always get apple, but the waitress said this was fresh out of the oven, and she earned her tip with that great advice. My trip down Gornergrat was interrupted by a helicopter than landed on the trail right after I passed that spot. Not sure what happened there. But the way down to the bottom after that was pretty sweet. It was my first of two times going down the run out from the first gondola stop up the mountain past a bunch of bars.
The Matterhorn went from brown to white due to some fresh snow. |
Random observations along the way:
- What is it with Sweet Caroline? Last year at Lech, the gondola played it and folks sang along. This week, on a couple of different gondolas, it was played, and people sang along.
- I mentioned above that the slopes were not that crowded (except when a huge gondola disgorges many people--then I just took pics and waited). The mountains and the 50 plus lifts absorb a lot of people. The worst liftline was about 20 minutes, and that happened once. I rarely had to wait. But the town of Zermatt is small, so walking into a restaurant and getting seated is a gamble. I didn't make many reservations, and I ended up having to go with second choices. Which worked out fine, meeting Canadians who live near me. The restaurants on the slopes--very different--no problems there.
Last day, I induldged
at one of the bars that
line the runout. - Oh, no need for passport to cross from Switzerland (a non-EU country) into Italy. And, no, I didn't go through customs at the airport--Switzerland isn't in the EU but it is a Schengen country. Makes all of this much easier.
- Strange to go skiing and not hear any Aussie accents. I heard a lot of French, German, and Italian, and everyone could speak English, but no Aussie accented English.
- The Trump stuff came up from time to time--no fans here. Just Europeans marveling at how crazy things are.
- People often say that American serving sizes are big, but I have to say I was most impressed with the sizes of the dishes I ordered, including this slice of pizza which was about two inches think and about the size of my head
Oh, and I finally grabbed the chance to do a race course--a short one--and it had automatic video!!!