We started the day bright and early (for those on holiday time) at 9am with a ride up the gondola to the very top for Immy to see the views. Waking up to a stunning day was an added bonus to what was set to be a great adventure. Everyone else obviously had the same idea as it took a solid 90mins for a normally 40min ride. Still worth it, even as the cloud closed in on the Matterhorn it couldn't mar the experience. After the excitement of the top and our strenuous effort we decided we deserved a coffee at the first stop on the way down, got to keep hydrated whilst exploring. There was also free wifi there which let us see how the NZ JWOC team were getting on in Bulgaria.
Once fuelled up we set off on our walking extravaganza. We took the track from Trockener Steg (2939m) across to Schwarzsee which took us directly below the glaciers and the base of the Matterhorn, this provided some perfect opportunities for self timing photos, some great successes, others hilarious fails. The cloud hovered around the top of the Matterhorn but every time it cleared we would stand in awe/take a break from walking (it was a rest day after all). Once at Schwarzsee (2583m) we stopped on the grass for lunch with a beautiful view of the Matterhorn while listening to the live band at the restaurant, they even played Crowded House!
We wandered down the hill to Zmutt (1936m) chatting as we quickly dropped in height then the serious stuff began. We had eyed up Trift (2337m) as being a good spot to walk to, there were no gondolas up that valley so there must be something special up that way, maybe a local secret spot. The hike up the hill began in unison with the rain but as we moved around the hillside it abated and moved off to the opposite mountain range. Eventually we got to a sign with some times on it, 2 hours to Trift, what?! It didn't look anywhere near that far on the map, surely they had it wrong and we were moving pretty quickly anyway. We committed and up the hill we went.
The next junction gave us options, not always a good thing. Left climbed straight away and took us round the top where the only option was to go all the way to Trift. Right dropped down towards the valley where we would reach a junction towards Zermatt or up the valley to Trift. We were hard out, the rain had stopped, the left option it was. We climbed up and up and up. After a stop there was a comment that it seemed to be taking an awfully long time to climb 400m. Our suspicions would prove correct, we were hard out and we had taken a poor choice. With Immy commenting that she was 'sweating out of her jacket sleeves' (we are oh so ladylike) we finally reached a ridge with a sign. We were now at 2665m, we had climbed 300m higher than we needed to, whoops! At least it was all downhill now!!
As a bonus of our route choice we had now had a really solid training day and got to see some sheep with bells on at the top. It was also pretty damn cool climbing up the hill with Zermatt below us and the thunder from the opposite mountains rolling around the valley, provided it stayed on the opposite side of the valley. The 300m descent zoomed by and Trift proved to be the not quite so secret spot we were hoping for. A hotel/restaurant with a pretty waterfall out the back and not much else. At this point the rain started and we decided to make a dash for Zermatt, the supposed 1hr 25min walk taking us just over 35mins as we ran down the tracks to get back at 6.30pm. A seriously good day, and still 4 to go!
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