The absolute highlight of our Tour the Swiss Mountains was the visit of the internationally renowned, much famous village of Zermatt. It lies on the Southern side of the Rhone valley in the canton of Wallis. This Swiss canton (State) is home to two of the four national languages of Switzerland, German and French. Zermatt is situated in the German part, although in the village you can normally hear languages from visiting tourists from all over the world. Normally..... This Covid year however everything is different. No overseas tourists to be found, and few visitors from European countries from the Shengen zone. Nevertheless the town was fully booked, with mostly guests from Switzerland itself. Everyone from the locals wanted to profit from the fact that being in Zermatt and its mountains this year you do not have to fight your way through huge crowds of Chinese, Japanese, Indian and American guests. Especially among Japanese, Zermatt has a special status, as it is the sister city to Kyoto and has a decade long running tourist cooperation.
So we did arrive in Zermatt with gorgeous weather, very important if you want to view the beauty of the peaks of the numerous 4000
plus meter altitude mountain ranges and glaciers. Our plan here was to realise one of the four main goals of our sabbatical, Climb a 4000 plus meter high altitude peak in the Swiss alps. As two of the other three objectives are most likely not going to happen due to Covid (Hike the Inka Trail to Machu Pichu in Peru and Ride with the motorcycle through Chilean and Argentinian Patagonia to Ushuaia in Tierra del Fuego), this 4000+ mountain project became really important to Nenad. We chose in the eyes of experienced Swiss mountaineers an easy target, the Breithorn with 4164m altitude, nevertheless covered with glaciers, crevasses and snow all year long. However before this climax hike we were planning other wonderful and exciting tours in this unique region, home to the highest mountains Switzerland has, like the Dome (4545m), the Dufour Peak (4634m) and of course the Matterhorn (4576). We started with hikes around the Gornergrad (3100m), part of Zermatts mountains, as well as the hike up to the Hoernlihuette (3200m), which is the starting point for the mountain climbers attempting to climb the summit of the Matterhorn. We also scheduled a glacier course with a professional guide to
understand better the techniques and rules of high alpine touring. The weather all along including our ascent to the Breithorn was absolutely spectacular, making these days a once in a lifetime experience. Even for Nenad, who grew up in Switzerland, this was an absolute highlight of his mountaineering life.
The ascent to the Hoernlihuette is quite technical and one has to hike past many exposed rocks with deep ravines and valleys with spectacular but possibly a bit intimidating views below. For Nui, who sufferers from mild acrophobia (being afraid of heights), this has been a bit of a challenge. In addition half way through the hike the wind became quite strong, making the crossing of the mountain faces even more interesting. About 100m altitude below the Hoernlihuette and about 300m airline distance we decided to turn around, having seen enough. I can only be proud of Nuis courage having done this hike!
The glacier training area on Theodul Glacier and the ascent of the Breithorn are very different environments not having the same extreme exposure to rock faces and height issues. Therefore Nui decided to give it a try, despite the mixed feelings she took back from the
Hoernlihuette hike. She will not regret that decision, as the following two days turned out to really special !
The glacier training was conducted by Daniel a mountain guide of 20+ years experience, who knew exactly what to focus on with us glacier greenhorns.
