Saturday, 28 November 2009

Zermatt - 24th & 25th October

Another weekend down in the Valais region of Switzerland starting with a prompt finish from work and just over 5 hours on the train. No point reserving a seat on these trains, it's a far better plan to get a seat in the restaurant and have a beer and something to eat. It's also far more interesting as you invariably end up chatting with someone. With a Bahncard 50 from Detsche Bahn it is possible to get a return ticket down here for 80-90 €.



















Arrived in resort at 8.15pm and checked into the Best Western hotel and promptly went out for some dinner and a few beers at the Brown Cow.

Day 3 of 60. Seems I maybe had one beer too many and getting out of my bed I was upset to see that the pull lifts high on the glacier were closed for some reason I could not fathom or find out. The only thing running was the cable car between Trockner Steg and Kleine Matterhorn, which means a huge amount of queueing. However up top the conditions were great and it was nice to get a few long runs from the KM down to Trockner Steg, but after a while the queues got to much and I headed down to Furi a late lunch.



From the top red 85, red 83, red 81 and finally here the blue 73









So all in all only 23km and 1782m of vertical achieved on the day, but the views, weather and Valais Rosti made it a very pleasant afternoon.



Restaurant at Furi.










Day 4 of 60. News was far better this morning, all the pulls were running again at the top and they opened the Furggsattel Gletscherbahn which is a fast and modern 6 seater. As a snowboader pull lifts are okay, but a day on them is very tiring so this was fantastic news.




Gonna be a good day











Having decent lifts open makes it easier to get more mileage done, the time spent on an open air lift does not seem such as a waste as queueing for a cable car for 45 minutes. Gives you a chance to soak up the sun, watch the technique of others and take in the scenery.




Thats more like it














38km 4539m

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