Day 7

Gruben (1822m) to St Niklaus (1127m) and on to Zermatt

Ascend 1072m / Descend 1767m / Maximum height 2894m

I got up at 6am to beat the rush for the showers and Carole washed in our room.  This gave us plenty of time for a leisurely breakfast but even so we left the hotel by 7.50am.  A lot of climbing and descending today and it looked like it was going to be hot again.

A cool start though, as our side of the valley was in shade and we hoped to make some of the 1000m of height to the Augustbordpass before it became too hot. 

Climbing from the Schwartzhorn

Carole gains on me...

We went straight up from the hotel's front gate and climbed steadily, at first on pasture and then through trees.

The approach to the pass was the most interesting of the trip, being more varied.  After a brief section climbing through boulders, then a relatively gentle section on grass, we started to ascend over rocks.

We saw some interesting sheep grazing here and continued upward until eventually the cross marking the pass came into view far above, and still very distant.

Funny looking sheep

Heading for the boulder field

Red and white signs keep us on track

The approach was impressive as the pass looms above an extensive boulder field containing many small pockets of snow.  There was also a small lake formed from melt water.

The path veered across boulders to the right all the time ascending, and then crossed more boulders to the left, after which it was the usual zig zags and a steady climb.

We passed through a large snow field and soon made it to the top where, as ever, the views were impressive and this time we only had one other person for company.

At the pass

Looking back to our climb....

... and beyond Carole to our descent

We dipped into the picnic lunch we had bought to share and then set off to begin our long descent to St Niklaus, 5800 feet, our knees were going to ache tonight!

A striking feature of the descent was a long section across boulders.  Although there is a distinct path most of the time, there are quite a lot of judgements to be made about where to place one's feet and it is an unforgiving surface to walk on for this distance.

5800 feet to go!

Spring flowers still blooming up here

Our path goes across the boulder fields

We are careful where we place our feet

Some time later a feature described in our notes came into view, a viewpoint called Tara where one of the best panoramas in the Alps has been laid out. On a good day you can see as far as the Jungfrau to Lyskam and today was a good day.  There was a large cairn here and a grassy terrace.  The views are dizzying, looking down on villages made miniature by the height and below their level the valley plunging ever deeper into a dark cleft.

The cairn marks the viewpoint Tara

Time for lunch....

... with a view!

We ate our lunch here, dwarfed by the mountains and finding it impossible to fully take in the many aspects of the sight.

Our next objective was a village called Jungu and we descended steeply through meadows.  It was very hot and I had run out of water but found a spring from which to top up my flask.

"Back a bit....!"

St Niklaus

There is a cable car running from Jungu and next to its top station ('seilbahn') was a restaurant where we bought welcome drinks and chatted to an old gentleman who had come up on the cable car from St Niklaus. He was kind enough to move to allow us some shade, the other seats on the terrace all being taken.  

We were tempted to take this easy route down but resisted and spent the next hour or so descending very steeply, fortunately some of the time through shaded forest.  The track ended at the station at St Niklaus and we quickly established the time of the next train to Zermatt.  Just enough time for us to figure out how to get tickets from the machine, the ticket office being closed on a Sunday.

Fifteen minutes later we were relaxing in a lovely train with panoramic windows and arrived at Zermatt in about half an hour.

We walked from the station to our hotel, the Hotel Capricorn, bemused to walk through a town where there was no traffic.  The only vehicles allowed in Zermatt being electric 'milk float' type taxis and vans.  

Our hotel terrace

Carole and the Matterhorn on our rest day

One last strudel before home

We sat outside our hotel with a beer and then were shown our room, which had a balcony with an excellent view of the Matterhorn.

Our trek was over and tomorrow we would have a rest day in Zermatt before flying home.  It had been a good holiday with stunning views that we were lucky to see at their best as we had such beautiful weather.

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