WHR day 11: Europahütte to Zermatt

We finished! Neither of us had a very good night’s sleep, being in a dormitory in the hut, and with one man snoring all night. Therefore, we were up early. That did mean we got to see an ibex family though, and the tail end of the sunrise over the mountains.

After breakfast, packing, paying the bill and saying goodbye to the people we had met, we set off downhill to Randa. There were great views of Weisshorn in the sunshine across the valley and the other peaks. After about 20 minutes we reached the highlight of the walk, the Charles Kuonen Suspension Bridge. Until recently, this was the longest in the world at 494 metres long.

It was very impressive, spanning a huge gully on the steep mountainside. It was solidly built so I didn’t mind crossing it as much as I expected, except in the middle where the bridge was moving a lot because of the strong winds.

Once we reached Randa it was the end of our trek because much of the path for the last stage of the trek was closed. We caught the train to Zermatt and stored our rucksacks in a luggage locker, before catching the Gornergrat train… becoming tourists rather than hikers!

The Gornergrat railway is a great way to get good views of the Matterhorn. After doing some touristy selfies and looking at the various buildings we decided to walk down from the summit to a lower station .

We enjoyed the freedom of walking without big packs, but the number of people on the train and the mountain was a bit of a shock after hiking in relative isolation for two weeks.

After taking lots of photographs of the Matterhorn and other beautiful 4000 metre mountains we took a quieter trail, off the beaten track to Riffelalp Station. We hadn’t realised how far it was though and I wasn’t’t really prepared for the hot sun. We rested in the shade for some lunch and rehydration before catching the train back down to Zermatt.

Zermatt was also busy, so we were pleased to find our hotel in a quiet part of the town. Tomorrow, we have a free day to explore the town and relax. We also move to a posher hotel… a treat for the end of our trek. I think we deserve it!