04-08-2016 Haute Route Day 11
Grüben to St. Nicklaus
13.2 Kilometers
Lodging: Hotel Antika Zermatt 117 Suisse Franc for a room in the Annex, a spectacular breakfast, good Wi-Fi in the lobby (it worked in the room, but was better in the lobby on the nice couches) and walking distance to everything!
Haute Route Day 11 Google Earth File
Haute Route Day 11 Google Earth File
Click on the link above and download it to your computer. Then, open Google Earth and manually open and you can see the trail in 3D.
Gruben to Zermatt
We decided that this was our last hiking day. Technically, there were two legs of the trip left, but we wanted to spend a full day in Zermatt, and that meant taking the train from St. Nicklaus. But, there was another big col to crush and quite a few kilometers to cross.
Our departure was secret and stealthy. We had to get past the numerous guests in the room, pack our bags, and load up. The dorm / hotel was totally silent. It was about a half our or so before the sun was coming up and we had on our headlamps. With everyone asleep and not much light on the trail, I hoped we were gong to be on the correct track. I kept looking for the red and white trail markers and found one. Just like the book said, “Go to the back of the hotel and up the mountain.”
The trail quickly ascended once again through the morning dew and up to the tree line. We were hiking due east, so the trail was in a complete shadow. And, as we kept getting closer to the col, we stayed in the shadow. At times, my hands were freezing, but my gloves were in the bottom of my pack. I thought it would warm up soon enough.
Long shadows are fun!
Soon enough, we a reached a little shack, and past it there was a gradual pasture with cows. Since we left so early we had this whole place to ourselves. The col was visible in the distance, so we knew where we were going. There was something special about this being our last col to cross of the trip. When we got to the top we took our time and had another spectacular lunch on top of the mountains.
Ahhhh. The Augustbord Pass
The way down was tricky and had crumbling rock beneath our feet. Once again, it was difficult with tired legs and yet there was still so much more to go. We were unable to see the Matterhorn in the distance, since it was blocked by this giant ridge to our right. We crossed over a giant boulder field with wobbly rocks that resonated as you shifted them with your feet. We wrestled that trail for a while towards the canyon and then hung a right to see the Zermatt Valley in full glory. The Matterhorn was still hidden, but this time behind another mountain. We will have to wait to see it when we get to Zermatt.
We stopped again for a brief bite to eat and to admire the view. Suddenly, a friend we made the night before came up behind us. We had just crossed some very sketchy parts of the trail with insane drop offs before we stopped, so when we saw our friend we talked about how he did crossing this terrain. This was our friend Mat, the guy we saw the night before with some pretty good sunburn. He wanted to hike with us for the next section because he heard that it is very dangerous and tight. After we finished our snack we took a few photos of the glorious valley and pressed on, determined to get past the dangerous area.
The route looked like this for much of the way.
Katherine and Mat
On the entire descendent we talked with Mat. We found out that he lives in Munich and treks all around the world with his camera. He has travel blog that takes on an entirely different approach than mine. Take a look. I put his link below. Mat does great work and he is a blast to hang out with.
After a long downhill descent, we reached the Jungen Cable Car, which translates to “little boy”. We did not want to destroy our knees for another two hours, so we took this little cable car down to the Zermatt Valley. The car could only fit four people, and there was one car running in each direction. So, you had to wait for the next ride 10 or 20 minutes which was not a big deal. While we were waiting for the car, we noticed a box on the ground with packaged cheese to go down the mountain. A local man asked Matt if we could transport the cheese on the next downhill car. Of course we did and took a fine ride with some fancy goat cheese.
Not my pic, but this is what the mini cable car hut looked like.
Once at the bottom, we walked over to the train station. Now that we were in the village of St. Nicklaus, We had made the decision to take the train the rest of the way to Zermatt. We had some time to kill before the next train, so we sat down in the train station restaurant with Matt. After about a half hour we jumped on the train, and Matt headed out on foot the rest of the way to Zermatt. Our plan was to meet him the next day in Zermatt for lunch or dinner. He knew that we were going to Munich and wanted us to meet up with him if we had time on the next part of our journey.
25 Suisse Franc per person to go form St. Niklaus to Zermatt.
The short train ride to Zermatt was totally beautiful. We were in a train car that had overhead windows so you could look out and see the mountains in all directions. Once we got to Zermatt, things got crazy. The place was overrun with tourists from all over the world. We went to the tourist information office and got a map and we're quickly on our way to our hotel, but we had to walk down the most crowded street in the village dodging tourists with our giant backpacks.
Upon arrival at our hotel we were very tired, laid bags down, and headed out to the grocery store. We knew that tomorrow would be a big day of sightseeing in the village, so we made a dinner on the mini table in the hotel room and went to bed very early. We took all of our dirty clothes from the past two weeks and crammed them into a bag which we dropped off at the front desk to launder. It gets tiring washing your clothes in a sink over again, But it saves you a lot of money in laundry fees, and they turn out pretty clean.
Eat and Sleep!
Try finding that in the States!
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