We visited the fifth and last mountain of our trip today. Originally, today was planned for Gorergrat and Rothorn, the last two mountains of our trip. After discussing with my friends, we decided to skip Rothorn since the views would be similar and slowed down our pace a little today, starting later, since we only have Gornergrat on our list today.
Getting to Gornergrat was easy; there is a regular train service from the Gornergrat Bahn terminal in Zermatt, just across from Zermatt Bahnhof, linking visitors from Zermatt to Gornergrat in just under 30 minutes. The scenic cogwheel railway journey offered panoramic views of the Matterhorn and surrounding glaciers, and the seat on the right side of the train (during ascent) offered these breathtaking views. The Gornergrat Bahn started its climb up the mountain the moment it pulled out of the station, and within minutes, we were already outside the town riding amongst the forest on the hills behind Zermatt. The scenery gets wilder as the train climbs higher towards Gornergrat, until a point where the pine tree forest gives way to large snow plains. It is fascinating that the train brought us from a temperate climate zone through the subarctic to the arctic zones within minutes, where forests gave way to deserts of glaciers and snow. The Gornergrat Bahn stops at five stations along its climb to end at its final station at 3,089m.
Gornergrat – Europe’s Highest Open-Air Railway
Gornergrat is a 3,135m high ridge in the Swiss Pennine Alps. The top of Gornergrat offers visitors a great panoramic view of the surrounding mountain ranges and the Matterhorn. Other than being Europe’s highest open-air railway, Gornergrat also houses the highest hotel in the Swiss Alps. open to non-staying guests, the hotel houses a souvenir shop, a cafe and a restaurant. In terms of activities, there are rather limited things we can do at the top of Gornergrat. We spent our time visiting the many viewing platforms and the Zoom Experience. We first visited the souvenir shop at the hotel to check if there were any unique souvenirs we could buy back. As it was still rather early, we got our caffeine fix from the cafe one floor above the souvenir shop.
Gornergrat Observation Platform
The Gornergrat observation platform is located behind the hotel building and is the only other thing to do up here. Getting to the platform requires us to walk up a small slope, which is not too tedious. At the top of the slope is a large flat area with benches set up that are partially buried under the snow. This would make a great spot to relax and look out into the surrounding 29 peaks, and for an unobstructed view of the Matterhorn. There are some telescopes placed at the four corners of the platform, which are free for us to use. When looking through these telescopes, we saw information about the mountains (such as their names and heights) being projected inside the lens of the scope as we swivel it around to see the different mountains. As I was doing that, my friend suddenly popped into my view, which gave me a good idea to take some unique pictures of my friend through the telescope with the mountain name imprinted. We spent some time taking such pictures while we were up here. As we were walking around, we spotted some visitors seemingly climbing up a pile of rocks. This would be the highest point (other than the hotel) at Gornergrat. There wasn’t really much to do around here other than relaxing, taking pictures with the mountains and building snowmen.
Zoom Experience
After the viewing platform behind the hotel, we headed back to the souvenir shop to buy the souvenir glass with the shape of the Matterhorn at its base. We headed to the Zoom Experience next, which is an interactive exhibition that is included in our train tickets to Gornergrat. The experience started with a film about the Matterhorn. Compared to the film we saw in the 360° cinema on Jungfraujoch or the Cinema Lounge on Matterhorn Glacier Paradise, I thought this film was more interesting. It fully captures how the surroundings at Mattechangehanges with the seasons, and some parts I felt like I was flying up the surface of the mountain. The other experience that was interesting was the VR goggles. Sitting on the hanging chairs, the VR goggles play a film from a paraglider’s perspective, gliding past the Matterhorn. The hanging chair and the VR goggles gave us the feeling of flying.
Golden Spot
The Golden Spot, a short walk from the Zoom Experience, is essentially a place where a Golden Gornergrat Bahn was on display for visitors to take pictures with the Matterhorn as the backdrop. Getting to the Golden Spot during winter was a tad challenging. We had to tread each step very carefully on the path, as it is sloping downwards and covered with the remnants of ice. Other than taking a picture with the Golden train head, there was nothing much we could do here. We backtracked the slope we came down and made our way to the train station, just in time to catch the next train to Rotenboden.
Rotenboden – Our failed Attempt to hunt for the Lake
We originally planned to sledge on Gornergrat, as I read that the sledging here is one of the longest in Switzerland. We would basically rent a sledge at Riffelbergleberg and ride the train one stop up to Rotenboden and sledge downhill beside the railway track. However, we were disappointed that the facility was closed today. The next best thing to do is to proceed with our other original plan of taking a short 10-minute hike from Rotennoden station to Riffelsee, where the famous Matterhorn reflection is in the lake. However, the way to Riffelsee wasn’t exactly well-marked, and as we exited the train station, we eventually gave up the idea of going to Riffelsee. We saw some igloos on the way up and attempted visit the igloos. The way to the igloos was well marked by signs, and we could see the igloos after we crossed under the railway, but once we crossed under the railway track and they seemed far, we estimated it would take us at least 30 minutes to reach them. Moreover, it is situated in the lower plains, meaning we would be tired of climbing back up. We also gave up the idea of visiting (luckily, we did not visit; we heard from one of the visitors that the igloos are closed). As the Gornergratbahn calls into the stations every 30 mins, we spend the rest of our time relaxing and enjoying the tranquillity the mountains brought us while waiting for the train.
Return to Zermatt
After the foiled attempts on the stuff we were planning to do, there wasn’t much else to do at Gornergrat, so we headed back down to Zermatt via the next train that arrived. Despite seeing the same scenery when we came up, I was still captivated by the majestic mountain ranges and the Matterhorn. This could be our last time seeing Matterhorn at such a close range. Like our upward journey, the descent also took around 30 min. We popped by one of the two supermarkets in town to buy additional food that we will be cooking for dinner tonight. Tonight will be our last night in Zermatt, and we will leave the town on the World’s slowest express train, the Glacier Express, tomorrow.
