Zermatterhorn

My parents are visiting! Over the weekend Tanya and I went with them to Zermatt in the hopes of catching a glimpse of the most famous horn ever - the Matterhorn. Zermatt is a couple of hours away from Lausanne, but because of Switzerland's incredible train network our task was as simple as going to the station and taking the next departure for Zermatt. The trains there run via Visp, which is a town I like because it has a name you could catch in a jar. Some hours later and after a quick Rösti for lunch we were stamping our feet in the snow at Gornergrat, at 3100m above sea level. There was no sign of the fabled Matterhorn.

No sign of the Matterhorn; that is except this one.

To give you a very close view of the inside of a cloud.

For a while I thought this would be the closest I got to a photograph of the Matterhorn.

Waiting and hoping for the cloud to clear.

The mountains were hiding but we were determined to wait them out, so for a good while we watched as the swirling cloud shifted and fumbled, and Choucas (mountain chuffs) flew by and cried cheekily at us. Our patience was rewarded, for after a while the cloud slowly - very slowly - shifted to show first the Monte Rosa and its two flanking glaciers, and then later on the Matterhorn itself! This was in fact the first time I had seen the mountain up close. It is bloody impressive. You can see why it was the last of the great peaks in the Alps to be climbed - it is sheer on all four compass points, isolated so it catches the weather, and purely iconic. We beheld it for a good long time before we eventually decided to head back down into the valley.

The clouds teasing us!

The first glimse of the `horn itself!

Lyskamm (4527 m) and the Grenz Glacier.

Happy mountain viewers with the Monte Rosa (4634 m) behind (L).

Checking out the panoramic views.

Walking through snow.

An almost unobstructed view of the Matterhorn (4478 m).

Here are two panoramas I took with the iPhone's neat panorama feature - you can scroll right to see more if you're feeling adventurous. It's superb to just swipe the phone at a scene and have it mesh it together for you! If you want to see which peaks are which, the incredible PeakFinder can show you.

Panorama one. Monte Rosa and glaciers from Gornergrat.

Panorama two. The outlook from Rotenboden.

Heading back down in a fancy panoramic train.

Panoramic train windows.