Chamonix To Zermatt

The Haute Route

August 23rd 1994

The Final Countdown... walking up to Zermatt.

We left the hotel just as the town was filling with young people on their way to school. Walking along the road with them I felt a bit like an overgrown schoolboy with an outsized satchel on my back. The atmosphere created by the excited chattering of school children seemed to siut our mood, as our own excitement was barely beneath the surface. Today we would achieve what we had dreamed about for so long, so it was with great enthusiasm that we left St Niklaus and headed up the valley to Zermatt. The path out of the village was close to the railway line and each time a train went by the passengers waved to us, adding to what was beginning to feel like a carnival atmosphere. It’s not the most interesting part of The Haute Route, just a straight forward valley walk of fifteen miles or so, but a nice easy day for seasoned Alpinists.

It would not be fair to give the impression that the walk up the valley held no interest. Any lack of interest was down to us, on any other day it would have been a walk that would have satisfied our interests and curiosity for hours. There was still a lot to see and some very enjoyable scenery, but our interest was masked by the anticipation and the excitement that we inevitably felt. It was inevitable that on this day, if on no other, our objective was everything, today was all about arriving in Zermatt. By now we were getting hard to impress and all we wanted from today was to walk into Zermatt, all other distractions were kept to a minimum. Of course we were eager to see the Matterhorn at close quarters, but it’s one of the twists of this journey that ensures that the great mountain stays hidden from view right up to the last minute, only revealing itself to the successful Haute Routers when they are within fifteen minutes of the finishing line.

The weather looked clear as we left St Niklaus, but it would be an hour or two before the sun would penetrate the depths of this high sided valley. In this deep, narrow valley is inevitable that our track would follow the course of the railway, which followed the course of the road, which followed the course of the river.The various strands that run the length of the valley cross each other from time to time in a woven artery that runs from Zermatt to the Rhone Valley. Fortunately the most intrusive of these links, the road, was usually the furthest away from us and terminated at Tasch, a few miles below Zermatt.

The path entered the woods on the right hand side of the valley and the walking was comparatively easy with no seriously uphill sections, just a gradual climb up the valley. We were making good progress, until one major diversion set us back slightly.

Three years earlier there had been an enormous rock fall in the valley near the village of Randa. It’s plain to see, a great section of the mountain had collapsed into the valley, cutting all through routes. The disaster took place over three days with the first being on April 18th when 33 million cubic metres of rock fell from the mountain, burying the road and railway. It also blocked the river and a lake formed, threatening houses in the village. On April 22nd there was a further collapse, but not a significant as the first one, but on May 9th a further 15 million cubic metres of rock fell into the valley, further burying the road and railway and further damming of the river making the newly formed lake extend to 1.3 kilometres. The heavy rain and snowmelt that followed caused the village of Randa to be flooded until a channel was cut through the debris and the lake drained. Fortunately no one was killed though some animals perished and some properties were buried for ever. Within ten weeks the road and railway were diverted, although it was a couple of years before permanent routes were established. Which just leaves the footpath that we were following and that came to an abrupt end right infant of us. There was a fence across the path and all we could see on the other side was a mountainous pile of debris, looking rather like a huge scree, it was the rockfall that had happened just three years earlier. Work was still going on to landscape the area and re establish as much as possible of what had existed before, but for now the path didn’t exist. 

The Mattertal at Randa with the debris from the rockfall clearly visible.

A quick look at the map and we could see that we would have to retrace our steps to cross the river and just walk up the road until we could rejoin the path on the other side of Randa. The walk back to find a bridge took us half an hour and then we had forty five minutes of walking along the road until we could cross back over the river and back onto the path. This felt like the most dangerous part of the whole walk, not from further landslides, which do occur from time to time, but from the traffic. As bus after bus flew past us, taking their loads of tourists up towards Zermatt, we felt quite keen to get this section over with as soon as possible.

It was with great relief that we rejoined the path and resumed our walk in more peaceful surroundings. Unfortunately the weather appeared to be worsening, at the top end of the valley we could see The Briethorn and sometimes we could see it disappearing behind squally showers. It was looking more and more likely that we would be caught out in the rain. The wind was getting quite strong and gusty as we approached the village of Tasch, it was funnelling down the valley with such force that our progress was extremely difficult. It seemed like a good moment for a break, if only we could reach Tasch without getting wet. We had come all the way from Chamonix without getting seriously wet. The odd bit of drizzle around Mont Fort and a washed out day back in Les Hauderes where we had to abandon walking for the day, but thankfully we hadn't been caught out in anything resembling a good soaking. If the worst came to the worst we could always get the train up to Zermatt. It was a possibility, but never a serious consideration. I think we would rather have walked into Zermatt dripping wet than to arrive by train along with all the other tourists. As our determination became more and more focussed, our options were being cast one by one to the wind. As far as we were concerned, there was only one way forward. We had come this far on foot and that was how we would enter Zermatt.

We left the footpath and crossed the river once more, this time to visit Tasch to buy some lunch and have a restoring cup of hot chocolate before continuing. The wind that was blowing through the valley was cold and a cup of Suchard’s hot chocolate was delicious and very welcome.We had left St Niklaus with such haste that morning that we hadn’t stopped to buy anything for lunch, so I left Irene outside the supermarket in Tasch, guarding the rucksacks outside, while I took what seemed like an eternity to buy some fruit, cheese and chocolate to sustain us over the final leg of our expedition.

Tasch is literally the end of the road and all car and bus passengers must leave their vehicles there and get the train for the last few miles up to Zermatt. Consequently Tasch is like one great big car park. Field after field around the village, given over to the parking of motor vehicles.

We crossed over the railway line right next to the station without either of us even mentioning the possibility of catching a train. The weather was looking better again and the wind had dropped, so keen as ever, we crossed the river and rejoined the path. At the far end of the bridge was a footpath signpost that said ‘Zermatt 1hr 20 mins’. It’s hard to describe the significance of that small sign to us. Emotions were very mixed, after two weeks of walking, we were suddenly just eighty minutes from our destination and although we desperately wanted to complete the journey, we also didn't want it to end. Every signpost from now on was met with a kind of eagerness tinged with some regret, to see how many minutes of this great walk we had left. It really was the final countdown. It was both exciting and disappointing all at once. We had almost achieved our goal and at the same time it was almost over. Maybe it really is “Better to travel in hope…”.

The path climbed up through the woods, along the narrowing valley and we started to meet more and more people walking in the opposite direction, a sure sign that Zermatt wasn’t far away. We passed a signpost that told us we had just 10 minutes to go and finally Zermatt came into view under a grey sky. It was not a pretty sight as we approached from the north. There was a lot of construction work going on at this end of the town, with another noticeable feature being the heliport, where the helicopters of ZermattAir swooped in and out noisily. It started to rain and overall I began to feel that we should turn around as soon as we got there, maybe go back to one of those beautiful places we had passed through. Ironically, the path lead us directly into the station and we walked out into the square along with all the tourists who had just come up by train. We felt as though we should stop someone and tell them, we hadn’t come on the train, we had just walked here, all the way from Chamonix! But no, we just strolled across the square with the throng of day trippers eager for a sighting of The Matterhorn.

Zermatt

How does it feel to achieve a long held ambition that demands a good deal of effort? I hadn’t dared to even think about it until this moment, but I guess I had vaguely expected to feel elated, but I didn’t. I was tired after our walk and I was irritated by the hoards of people which can only have been emphasised by having hardly seen anyone over the past couple of weeks. Had I expected to feel like a different person? Did I expect that things would never look the same way again? I don't know what I expected, but it certainly wasn't this. The square between the station and the Tourist Office was crowded, the streets looked crowded and soon after we first saw The Matterhorn it disappeared behind the clouds, like a curtain coming down on a finale. The show was over.

This didn’t feel like the place we had looked forward to arriving in for so long. It didn’t look like the kind of place we could enjoy. We went into the tourist office to check the availability of accommodation, crowds everywhere. We came out again, more crowds. In the heat of the town it felt so claustrophobic, after two weeks on deserted mountain paths and fresh mountain air we weren't used to this, it felt so alien. We went back into the tourist office again. Should we stay, or should we leave? Where would we go? Where should we stay? We had come not only to the end of our walk, but we had also come to the end of our plan and not having that discipline of preparing for the next day left us floundering with too much choice. We eventually took the plunge and I picked up a phone and that connected me to a nearby apartment building where I booked a room for three nights. Armed with a street map from the T.O. desk we left the throng in the square and five minutes later we were checking in at the Apartments Jollimont, a comfortable ground floor flat where we had three days to reflect and unwind this walk that we had just completed.

The days had flown by us since leaving Chamonix. It perhaps seems strange to say flown by almost unnoticed, when in fact there had been so much to notice, so much to see. Maybe too much to take in day after day. As one day’s walking came to an end it was time to start planning the next day. Never quite having the time to reflect on the day's achievements and sights before the next one came along. It had been all about being in the moment with no time for thinking about what we had done, all our thoughts and energies were focussed on now and what lay immediately ahead. So much had happened in the last seventeen days since we let home. Geneva, Argentiere, Chamonix, Trient, Champex, Verbier, Mont Fort, Nendaz, Arolla, Les Hauderes, Grimentz, St Luc, Gruben Meiden, St Niklaus and now finally, Zermatt. So many places that we had passed through, over seven mountain passes, past countless snow capped peaks and icy glaciers. Through many beautiful Swiss villages and valleys, seeing more beautiful scenery that anyone has a right to expect in a lifetime of walking. The whole experience had been a wonderful privilege.

We left our packs in the apartment and went in search of a bank and refreshment, in that order. The effects of the robbery earlier in our adventure were beginning to cause us some difficulty as cash machines were virtually non existent and banks few and far between. But one of the pluses of being in a tourist centre like Zermatt was that there was a lovely machine that spewed out Swiss Francs every time Irene showed her card. So refreshed and solvent we strolled around the streets of Zermatt. The warm sun came our as the day trippers drifted away. The magnificent Matterhorn cast it’s cloak of cloud and welcomed us, Zermatt began to feel like a different, more friendly place. As we began to relax, the realisation of what we had done began to filter through.

Today we walked triumphantly into Zermatt. There was no finishing line and nowhere to register our achievement, but by now the silly grin on our very sun tanned faces told the whole story. We had done it! We had passed the physical test we had set ourselves, overcome the difficulties that had arisen along the way, taken on the challenge and fulfilled an ambition. It isn't necessary to mark it with a gesture of any kind, our reward is something that we will feel inside, for ever.

The End

Views from around Zermatt