Tour Monte Rosa, Switzerland

The route up snaked through the forests and clouds resting above Zermatt and it wasn’t until Tufternalp that the view cleared up. We finally caught a first glimpse of the Matterhorn, its view so mesmerising it allowed me to catch up a little with Sam, the longer limbed of the pair of us. From Tufternalp the scenery really opened up: beautiful meadowland sprinkled with grand boulders providing some much needed shade. We continued our way up and soon reached our stay for the night, Fluhalp. We arrived early, which provided sufficient time to settle in to the room and plan the next day’s hike, onwards to the Europahütte.

Dinner at the hut was delicious and we were left with enough time to witness sunset in silence.

A thought that crossed my mind: I often find nature mirrors us. Take for example sunrises: waking up slowly, opening to the sun, taking in the energy. Or sunsets: calming down slowly, closing in, recentering and finding back to ourselves. There is this tranquility about a day ending, on the inside and the outside, a tranquility on every scale and we find ourselves belonging. Oftentimes you will find us contemplating our journeys over sunrises and sunsets, beginnings and endings.

Day 2

… started with sunrise. The alarm was set for 4:30 and this time I even managed to wake up on my own, so I was all layered up and ready for a sunrise walk before the alarm even went off. I kicked Sam out of bed and off we went to the beautiful Stellisee, the lake not too far from the hut with an amazing view of the Matterhorn (a double winner thanks to the mirroring of the peak on the water’s surface).

Almost at the lake we realised we are not alone - looking over to the Matterhorn you could see the dim light of two head torches, clearly climbers making their way up the rock face. We felt connected.

I’ll tell you one thing - the peace and awe didn’t last for long. Always up for chit chat, I started bragging about waking up before the alarm went off, not even bothering taking my phone on our walk in order to be fully immersed in the sunrise experience … without turning off the alarm. With me too sleepy to realise the problem, Sam sprinted back up the mountain to the hut, leaving me in a movie of my own imagining how everybody will be awake by now after at least 10 minutes of a loud alarm in a completely sleeping hut. Oops.

With this little hiccup taken care of and Sam back from this unplanned morning exercise, we went back to slow mode, enjoying the view of the valley waking up. One more look to lock it all in, one deep breath, and we were ready for day 2 of our hike.

Day 3

By day 3 I could not get my left foot in the hiking boot, the previous days and ongoing marathon training had taken a toll on my Achilles tendon. For the day it had to be trainers instead.

We left Europahütte quite early, aware of the long day ahead. The hanging bridge crossing the valley had been taken by rock fall, the alternative path took us all the way down to the valley. We faced unbeaten paths, descents needing chains for support, and various wildlife (if sheep count as such).

Day 3 felt difficult for the first time. It left us questioning the route ahead and our chances of completing the route. Little did we know about what was about to come on day 4.

Day 4

Trying to find the words to describe day 4 is difficult, which reflects the day itself quite well. We didn’t find many words between each other that day either.

It began with the typical winter-ski-resort-summer-farm type scenery found in so much of the Alps, but quickly turned into the famous Grächen Höhenweg, providing narrow paths, sheer drops, and not much mental energy to think about shooting photos of the scenery after the beginning of the hike. At this stage, it was clear we had brought backpacks which were too big to comfortably navigate this path, often having to face the mountain through the narrow parts to keep some stability. All of this then peaked in a near miss for Sam when negotiating some boulders from a previous land slide, which subsequently started to continue on their journey down the rather steep mountain face. Luckily Sam moved quick enough to not be taken with it, being left only with a few cuts and bruises. The next few kilometers passed in silence.

The rest of the hike seemed rather timid with just a few boulder fields and rocky staircases to navigate before the gentle descent through the forest into the famous ski resort of Saas-Fee.

The aftermath of Day 4

The night was short since we spent hours and hours the evening before trying to decide whether to continue the hike or not. We carefully examined all the maps we could find, paper and digital ones, we read the tour description again and again, hoping to find clues on the difficulty of the upcoming sections, we looked at alternatives, we watched videos of others completing the route. And at late hour we decided to abort.

Day 5 found us therefore enjoying Saas-Fee. We took the day off from hiking and explored the village and its Rösti instead; a break much needed to recover from the previous days and recharge our batteries.

Day 6

The moods were up again, the hiking shoes back on and we were ready for one more adventure in Saas-Fee around the Fee Glacier.

We have been around glaciers before in Patagonia, yet the Fee Glacier left quite a different impression. The marks of its retraction were so obvious, the glacier felt and looked like an ancient, silent giant being pushed back into its hiding. As we stood next to it the air was crisp, its roar loud, its secret well kept by the blanket of clouds.

Day 7

Time to head back to Zermatt for the last few days. As our hike around the Monte Rosa was supposed to end where it started, at the foot of the Matterhorn, and we had all the huts booked already, we decided to attempt hiking some of the originally planned route backwards. And what a great decision this was. It was the eve of my birthday so we started the day early aiming for the Gandegg hut.

We passed villages, anthills, springs, waterfalls, ski lifts, overcame a snow field and scrambled the last few meters to find the Gandegg hut resting in the afternoon sun. We rested too, as did the Klein Matterhorn and Breithorn giants next to the Theodul glacier. It was just us and them and we felt welcomed.