The Matterhorn Trek - our foe appears before us. This was taken from the town of Zermatt (about a third of the way along the route).
The Matterhorn Trek - our foe appears before us. This was taken from the town of Zermatt (about a third of the way along the route). | |
 | Actually the above photograph was taken as we were leaving the area (I put it at the top for artistic/narrative purposes). The weather was actually quite awful for the first two days. |
Three characters on the trail. That is my politically conservative friend Steve on the left (He's a republican! sigh...). In the middle is the fearless leader of the fellwanderers, Pete. Note that he is NOT wearing a hat - I will return to this subject later. On the right is our hero Matt. |  |
 | This is the trail up to Zermatt. There actually was an alpine train that ran this route - but why take a train when you can walk? |
Our camp in the valley below the Zmutten Glacier. I would like to take this moment to comment on the fact that I do not actually enjoy camping in the snow. I would much rather visit these places when the temperature is not sub-zero, but there is no guarentee that I will actually have any free time to travel during the summer. |  |
 | This spring holiday has been great... Norway, Italy, and now Switzerland, but I can certainly say that I am glad to be home for two reasons. One, I need to study (my only excuse for working on this page is that I just finished 4 outlines for practice essays - I suppose one could say this is my reward). Two, I am REALLY tired - I've actually been taking naps! (a very unmatt-like thing to do). I must be getting old. |
Another group photo. Note that I am on the left. Although that IS my hat on Pete in the center. He got a severe sunburn on his face and his cheeks got all swollen (he looked vaguely like a chipmunk). Anyhow, I offered my hat to him (largely because I would hate to have to treat even worse ultraviolet facial burns - not fun) and also because he looked very unhappy. I dumped sunblock on by the gallon and whilst I didn't get a burn I got tons of color. |  |
 | This was as close as we could get to the Mattherhorn itself without risking burial from avalanches (which we saw several of). |
We had to travel through this cave on our trek down. Not so dangerous. Right? Wrong. Inside all the snow turned to ice - everywhere. There was not a single path through that was not treacherously slick. Once we actually got walking through the cave we realized it wasn't so bad as long as we were careful - but it certainly was daunting |  |
 | Steve falls as Matt happens to be figuring out the rapid auto shot on his camera |
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