Gornergrat and the Matterhorn

The Gornergrat Bahn is Europe’s highest open air railway, stretching 9.3 kilometers/5.7 miles from the resort town of Zermatt at 1605 meters/5266 feet above sea level to its terminus at 3089 meters/10132 meters above sea level. The railway is famous not only for the fact that it’s the highest railway in Europe, but also for its views of the Matterhorn and glaciers bordering Italy and Switzerland. There’s also a plethora of above-tree line hiking trails through the Alps accessible from Gornergrat. We’d had some middling weather on the couple of days prior during our stay in Herbriggen, but were rewarded for our wait with cold but clear skies for our day trip into the alpine. The views from the train on its way up the mountain were nothing short of spectacular, with the towering Matterhorn visible within a couple of minutes of leaving the station in Zermatt. Such a majestic peak towering over the glaciers and valleys below, it’s no wonder it’s been the inspiration for so many mountain peaks in movies and Disney features over the years.

The entire run of the Gornergrat Bahn is a cog wheel railway: there’s an additional track in the center of the two traditional rail lines into which a geared cog wheel slots and pulls the engine up the track. Amazing to think the Gornegrat Bahn was opened all the way back in 1898 and is not only the highest open air railway in Europe but also the first electrically-powered cog wheel railway in Switzerland. The steepness of the tracks in some sections was pretty incredible. The railcars were very well thought out, with almost floor-to-ceiling windows in the lower seats in the center of the carriages, while the raised sections above the wheels had windows that opened – quite rare on a modern railway – to allow photos to be taken from the train.

Most of the passengers on the train rode up for a few photos and maybe a bite at the high-end Vis-à-Vis restaurant in the Kulmhotel at the Gornergrat Bahn terminus, but we’d packed a lunch and decided to hike all the way back to Zermatt from Gornergrat along the edge of the Gorner Glacier that stretches along the valley below. The vistas from the viewing platforms around Gornergrat were nothing short of magnificent: we could see no fewer than 29 4000 meter/13000 foot peaks and more than 10 glaciers surrounding us from up on top. It was tough to dress for the day given we were going to be traversing more than 5000 feet of vertical on the way down, we all have four layers for our torsos (at least one of which was wool). I’m not sure of the temperature at Gornergrat when we were up there, but it sure was frigid!

We stopped at Riffelsee on our way down for lunch as well as to spend some time taking in the spectacular view of the Matterhorn for which Riffelsee is so famous: if there’s no wind, during the morning hours the lake reflects a perfect mirror of the Matterhorn in the distance. The vistas of the mountains bordering Italy and Switzerland on the other side of the Gorner Glacier were also incredible. So much snow and ice, the photos here just don’t do it justice.

From Riffelsee we traversed the alpine above tree line for another mile or two before we started our descent through the forest and into the Matter Valley above Zermatt. The panoramas of the mountains, glaciers and the Matterhorn were breathtaking the whole way down, such a beautiful part of the world. Eagle Eye Lilia spotted a lone ibex in the shadows as we were hiking down from Riffelealp, who was kind enough to walk towards us into the sun so I could snap a couple of shots of him below the glaciers in the distance.

As we wound our way into the Matter Valley we stumbled upon a suspension bridge spanning the raging glacial waters of Furggbach, a little unsettling walking out across it and looking down into the canyon below! There were so many excellent MTB trails in the forests of the Matter Valley surrounding Zermatt, Max was steering his imaginary bike as we hiked down through the trees. We passed some beautiful hotels and chalets through the outskirts of Zermatt on our way to the central Bahnhofstrasse with its endless array of boutique clothing stores and restaurants. Ice cream for the kids before we hopped on the Matterhorn Gotthard Bahn back to Herbriggen, an exceptional day of hiking and exploring the Alps.

I was originally going to include all these photos in the rundown of our time in the Valais canton of Switzerland, but with so many photos I kind of had to break out our day trip into a separate post. Our walk ended up being 16 kilometers/10 miles from start to finish, with 91 meters/297 feet of ascending and 1612 meters/5289 feet of down. We earned our beers!