An Anniversary To Remember!
Once again we got up early this morning, against all measures of sanity and went outside into very cold air to take pictures of the Matterhorn. It looked brilliant, but I posted a picture yesterday and also on Facebook so everyone knows what that looks like now. This is one of the mountains back behind us that looked pretty dramatic this morning. Though you might enjoy this one instead!
We kind of had a thought to go up into the alpine today to hike around several tarn lakes up above 2570 m elevation. We hadn’t really firmed this up, but decided over breakfast that would be better than hanging around in town today. We returned to our room and gathered all our trekking gear and headed for a Finicula and gondola combination. Before we knew it we were way up above 8500 feet and trekking!
A sign pointed in a somewhat wrong direction sent us off in the wrong direction! We ended up climbing another 250 m above the gondola station (9200’) and moving laterally quite a ways away and well out of sight. However, we were still on a trail that was properly marked with the red and white slashes of the GR routes and decided to keep going.
Overhead we had some company.
Well below us we saw the first lake that we were supposed to arrive at. We didn’t arrive down there for quite a while, but we didn’t really care because just look at the amazing views!
As you can see, the trekking was quite spectacular today. Sharp blue skies with threatening clouds in behind that never found their way into our valley.
We heard and saw several marmots calling to each other amongst the rocks. It reminded us of two years ago when we were hiking in the Whistler Garibaldi alpine. As a matter of fact, with the exception of a higher number of visible glaciers it was quite similar.
We arrived at the first tarn lake and the reflective images were pretty appealing. I took a few photos!
Ha ha! We never even got close to the other small lakes. The signage again sent us off in a different direction and we found ourselves eventually back at the top of the gondola we’d come up on. To make matters more interesting Annemarie discovered that she’d lost her ticket to get back down the mountain. No problem, I wanted to walk down anyway and this gave us both a great excuse to do so. Sometimes things happen for a reason, and this was a wonderful outcome! Before we could start our descent we had a nice visit from some local residents.
These are Black Face sheep and this is the only place in the world one finds them. This fella was particularly friendly, but most of the others sort of kept a bit of distance…at least from touching. These were not at all like the huge sheep that attacked me in 2014 while walking on Spain’s Via de la Plata. Now those were sheep to be reconned with! This was a little like taking our grandchildren to the petting zoo. Almost as much fun!
We finally pulled ourselves away from these beautiful little friendly sheep and began at 2+ hour hike down the mountains to Zermatt.
Today was the second or third day that we’ve been buzzed by Swiss Air Force fighter jets. With a simple camera they are very difficult to get pictures of, but boy were they moving! I guess with Russia’s aggression things are getting amped up here considerably. Anyway it was a fun airshow!
This being Switzerland, we were actually able to stop at a small lodge for a beverage on our way down. Just above the tree line. From there it was a beautiful walk through pine forests that gave off an incredible scent.
Zermatt finally below.
We did a little math and our descent from 9200’ to Zermatt at 5240’ means we descended almost 4000’ or 1290 m. Annemarie’s watch thingy says we climbed 69 floors of stairs up and 362 down! Seems like a lot to me, but I don’t have one of those watch things. I kind of walk by the seat of my pants. I do know that we clocked about 15 kms today. Two amazing days of walking here.
Our principal reason for coming to Zermatt other than sort of being in the neighbourhood was to celebrate our 42nd wedding anniversary. We’ve been together through thick and thin for 46 year. Not a small achievement in these times. A lovely gift from my parents and their encouragement to go out for a good meal meant a memorable evening in a very good restaurant that Annemarie smartly arranged.
The food was truly remarkable and the service was over the top! Annemarie enjoyed what she claims was a brilliant steak and I had lamb chops with an excellent mushroom sauce and veggies.
Annemarie’s dessert (she didn’t eat all of it).
And mine (I did drink all of it)!
As we walked ‘home’ I noticed this tiny house up on a cliff overlooking town. Crazy!
Tomorrow morning at 9:11 we will ride the train together down to Lisp, and for the next 7+ weeks we will go in different directions. Annemarie to Holland to see family and then onwards to Ireland also to see family and walk a bit more before heading for home mid September. I’ll be heading back to Martigny and from there completing the first of 3 stages that will see me climb from 470 m to 2470 m at the top of the Grand Saint Bernard Pass and then hopefully onwards direction Rome. All this high altitude training the past two days should hopefully help! It will be a bit weird walking solo again, but I’ve logged well over 3000 kms of solo walking, and I mostly trained for this walk alone knowing there would be about 1100 kms still to walk after Annemarie departs. But I will miss her company.
Bon Chemin!
What an amazing time these three days have been for both of you and being able to celebrate your 42nd anniversary there. We are delighted to have been part of this joyful time. I wouldn’t have wanted you to miss it. Of all your amazing hikes this is truly the pinnacle.
ReplyDeleteMay joy go before each of you with much to share at the end of seven weeks.
Much love. M