Eva on the Via Francigena (and beyond)

Hello, everyone…I’m back! Last I left you I had just finished an epic crossing of the Andes on horseback (which remains one of the most intense things I’ve done). I lost track of time and never wrote about the rest of my Argentina travels. Rest assured they included Malbec tastings, tango classes, and plenty of steak as I bopped my way across Mendoza and Buenos Aires.

Since then, I’ve embarked on another adventure — I’ve moved to Switzerland! If exploring the Himalayas and the Andes wasn’t enough, I found a job that allows me to live at the foot of the Alps, which have become my playground over the last few months. I’ve been settling in, adapting to the new culture, befriending cows and eating lots of chocolate and cheese. I live on the shores of Lac Leman in a town along the Swiss VF — talk about full circle moments! — and spend my weekends exploring the Valais Alps, Vaud / Fribourg Prealps, and going for icy swims in waterfalls and alpine lakes. Pas mal, as they say. I’ve had a few longer adventures already in my new home country, including exploring Appenzell with my friend Alice over Easter, a two-day hut hike in the Pays d’en Haut, a few camping expeditions in the mountains above my town, and many via ferratas (these scare my mom the most as they usually involve me hanging off a cliff, tethered only by two carabiners). I’ve been bad about updating the blog, obviously, but this is me trying to make it up for you by covering some of my late summer adventures. So, here goes 🙂

Songs of the trip: Mystery of Love — Sufjan Stevens, and Crooked the Road — Mon. Rovia. Peaks this large require fantastic, finger picked indie guitar that makes you feel like you’re floating. But of course.

August 1st is the Swiss National day, and therefore a bank holiday for the whole country. Like any good American, I am extremely protective of my vacation days and therefore keen to make the most of a long weekend. However, after a brutally hot June we were treated to a cold and rainy July that returned snow to the high altitudes…creating enough uncertainty that I dragged my feet on booking plans for the long weekend until a few weekends before. Finally, I forced myself to sit at my computer and research multi-day routes to try and pick something still available.

In the end, I landed on the Tour des Dents du Midi, a 3-4 day loop circling the looming “teeth” of the Valais. They are my favorite mountains — I can see them from my office, so spend a good deal of time studying them — and I was excited about taking on the (apparently somewhat grueling) tour. I texted my friend Melissa asking if she wanted to join, knowing it was also on her list. “I would be,” she responded, “but the hut options for the second night are all fully booked.” Shit. I must have misread the SAC website. “It’s fine,” I countered — why don’t we just bring bivouac stuff and sleep outside?” She informed me that was a hard pass, and she would be looking around Zermatt instead. Thus came the inspiration for my weekend — why not head to Zermatt? I’d been there before, but only to ski. There were a number of huts in the area and I could probably cobble together some sort of itinerary.

Which is how I found myself stumbling out of my apartment at 5:30am on Thursday morning, my trusty 60L backpack filled to the brim and almost toppling me backward as I made my way to the train station in the near darkness. At 6am I caught the first of two trains towards Zermatt, whipping open my laptop to begin my workday. A 6am start, I figured, would give me the chance to sign off a bit early — the key to my plan for the day. The train slowly trundled its way towards my final destination, and I admired the steep slopes, carpeted in pines, as we slowly climbed. I even spotted a rainbow at the valley entrance. Finally, just before 9am, the train pulled into Zermatt and I sought wifi and refuge from the still-chilly morning air in a coffee shop on the Bahnhofstrasse. I was distracted from my emails by the tinkling of bells outside — a quick investigation revealed that farmers were herding about a hundred black-and-white goats through the Main Street. Sometimes, living in the French part of the country, it feels almost like I am living in Southern Europe but with more expensive groceries and better trains. Times like this, watching the goats bleat in complaint as they trotted past dark timbered homes adorned with gardenias. I remember that I am indeed in Switzerland.

The rest of my Thursday workday went smoothly — I set up a temporary office in the Zermatt McDonald’s (free WiFi and lots of tables), bought a new pair of trail runners on my lunch break, and even managed to sneak in a 10 minute nap in the sun in the garden behind the church. With my meetings done, I shoved my extraneous items (laptop, charger, sleeping bag — you’ll come to understand the last one) into a luggage locker at the station and hopped on a train back to Täsch, the next station down valley. Here I joined two middle-aged Spaniards, Roberto and Arancia, and a Swiss German girl named Olivia to wait for a taxibus to take us to Täschalp, the hamlet 700 meters above the train station. We had a fun ride — Roberto told me about his time as a student in Lausanne decades prior, the taxi driver wanted to practice his Italian, and Olivia shared stories of her time working in the hut where we were headed. In Täschalp, Olivia pointed up another 600 meters to a small dot in the distance. “There is the Täschhütte. If you walk fast you should still make it in time for dinner. If you don’t mind, I am going to walk ahead.” And like that, she was receding into the distance ahead of me on the path.

Normally I consider myself a pretty fast hiker, but not compared to the Swiss, so I didn’t even pretend to try and keep up with Olivia. Not to mention that I was out of shape, after a full month of minimal hiking and too much partying at the Montreux Jazz Festival. The bus had arrived late (well, actually, it departed early without any of its patrons, so another bus was sent to collect us). Because of the mixup we didn’t make it to the start of the trail until 5:30pm. Dinner was served promptly at 6:30, and the hike up was supposed to be an hour and a half…so, it was going to be a rough start to the trip regardless, I figured. As it turns out, I had not jettisoned enough weight in Zermatt and had brought way too much water, so found myself quickly running out of breath and having to stop to drink. Even so, I set off at a quick clip and began to make my way above the valley, watching from afar as a farmer used an old jeep to herd his cows, the sound of the horn bounding off of the surrounding rocks. I didn’t have much time to sightsee if I wanted to eat something tonight, so I stumbled my way along the rocky trail, scrambling over rocks and drawing ragged breaths. How was it so hot this late in the day? Why on earth did I bring two days’ worth of water for a 1.5 hour hike? And where was this fucking hut??

Finally, the Täschhütte emerged again, perched high on a ridge above me. I consulted the map which, somehow, suggested it would take 40 minutes to walk the two kilometers and 200 meters of elevation remaining. At that rate, I would be going to bed very hungry. I gritted my teeth and pushed on, finally finding myself at the base of the last hill. Planting my poles with an undue amount of force, feet slipping in the dust even with the new shoes, I basically threw myself up the hill and into the cloakroom of the hut. Red-faced and hyperventilating, I dropped my pack, grabbed my phone, and checked the time — 6:22pm. I had done it. Now, time to look a bit less exhausted before meeting the rest of the patrons.

While it varies a bit from hut to hut based on the guardians who manage it during the season, they usually work in a similar way. During the day, they often operate as a restaurant serving a-la-carte lunch. Hikers arrive in the afternoon and check in, leaving their things in the cloak room and changing from boots into hut-provided house shoes (typically crocs). At a set time, everyone eats dinner together (usually a three course affair), and then retires to their assigned dorm rooms, sometimes before the sun has fully set. Breakfast is in two shifts: one for mountaineers before dawn (they will set off on glacier crossings while the ice is still cold), and another for hikers at a manageable early time. I was the last one into the Täschhütte that night, so grabbed the smallest pair of crocs I could find (a men’s pair that was still about 4 sizes to big) and clip-clopped my way to my assigned dinner seat.

I was lucky enough to be seated near a group of three: a Polish father (Robert) and son (Maciek), and their friend Beata. Maciek had spent almost half his life in Manchester (and had the accent to prove it) and had raced bikes professionally before starting his own training business and bike shop. We chatted for most of the meal and he regaled me with stories of his father’s mountaineering exploits. The three of them had climbed the Matterhorn the day before (a concept still unbelievable to me at the time), but turned around a bit before the summit because Robert’s crampon broke mid-climb. Somehow, he managed to make it back down the mountain with no crampons. “I would have died, if it had been me,” laughed Maciek, shaking his head. “My dad is so intense. He’s really good.”

Maciek and I grabbed beers and headed out to the patio to catch the sunset as we chatted about travels and life. Alpenglow created a fiery halo behind the Mettelhorn across the valley, and illuminated in pink the glacially-topped Strahlhorn. “That’s where I’m going tomorrow,” Maciek pointed proudly, until his father came over to correct him. They were going to Alphubel, the next peak over. Oops. But either way it was a 3am breakfast for them, so we bid each other good luck and then they were off to bed. I hung around for a bit longer to read my book and chat with two mountaineers from my dorm room — a German car mechanic and a Dominican industrial engineer whose names I forgot to write down. We had a nice chat about what inspires them to get up into the mountains, and the benefits of a paragliding license as a mountaineer (no descent; saves your knees!) Then, finally, bedtime for me as well — I crawled into my sleeping bag liner in the pitch black dorm and fell asleep to a lullaby of harmonized snores.

Hiker’s breakfast was at a leisurely 7am, though I was up well before to change and pack. I’d planned to make an early start of it, but plans don’t mean much when you’re in the mountains. The hut was enshrouded in a cloud when I woke, and in a brief clear period I could still see clouds hanging low in the valley where I was headed. No rush, then, so I took a slow breakfast (cereal, salami, cheese, toast, jam) and read a bit more. But restlessness soon got the best of me and I was back in the cloakroom, chatting in Italian with a group of Ticinese as we laced our shoes and donned raincoats. They pointed me in the direction of a less-steep descent and I was off, the clouds drifting away even as the valley remained bathed in shadow. I watched the golden light begin to illuminate the cliffs above me, and then suddenly I was hit by the first rays of sun. It quickly got hot and I was tearing off my layers as I continued downhill and back into Täschalp, where I popped my head into the chapel before finding signs for the Europaweg, which would bring me back to Zermatt.

The Europaweg is a 3 day trail starting at the beginning of the valley, in Grachen, and ending in Zermatt. I would have loved to walk the full 3 days of it (and cross the longest suspension bridge in Europe!) but parts of the trail were closed due to landslides. This section was fine, however, and the trail picked up crossing a burbling crystal-clear creek surrounded by fuschia wildflowers that waves in the breeze. I snapped some photos and began climbing back up to 2200m, at which elevation the trail would hang out for most of the morning — no more steep uphills for me today! The trail was the sort that I would consider perfect. Rolling up and down, not too steep, and not too wide, it crossed from soft and shady pine forests, traversed a rockfall, and picked its way among moss-covered boulders.

As I rounded a corner in the forest, I looked up and was practically smacked in the face with a view of the Matterhorn. I knew I would see it for most of the day today, but this first glimpse was still exciting — I couldn’t help but grin as I stopped to admire the view. I went a bit further before realizing I was in absolutely no rush — why not chill a bit more? So I pulled off to the side of the trail to each a day-old peach and enjoy the view, waving hello to Robert and Arancia as they sped past. Once I was back on the trail, I passed a large sign warning that I was about to enter a high rockfall risk area. “Stay calm and walk quickly,” it advised, pointing out a handful of shelters built to protect walkers should they get caught out. It had been dry the last few days so the risk was low, but even so I figured I would keep the pace up as I crossed, pausing for a quick breather next to each of the shelters to gear up for the next section. Many years ago a large landslide came down and took out the train line between Täsch and Zermatt. I remember being told about it when I arrived for a weekend of skiing and being terrified by the concept — how unpredictable things can be in the mountains! It’s true, nature can be scary in that way, but I know now that these things rarely happen completely out of the blue, and understanding the conditions can help you understand when there might be higher risk. Really, so much of mountain life and mountain sport is about risk management, in the end.

Safely out of landslide terrain, I ambled along a grassy track, catching up to the Spaniards at a lookout offering a panorama of the whole valley: the Matterhorn hanging high above Zermatt town, and to its left Theodul Pass, Klein Matterhorn, Briethorn, the Monta Rosa massif and its huge glacier…it was spectacular. And I was hungry, so it was a perfect snack stop. I perched on a boulder and made myself a sandwich of salami slices and some local goat cheese I had found in the coop. I recorded a short video to say hi to my grandmother, who was on a family spa vacation, and let the warm sun hit my face as I admired the view. Eventually I decided it was time to keep it moving, so packed it up and continued onwards towards Zermatt. Progress was slow as I kept stopping to take photos of the Matterhorn, which now had a streaky white cloud clinging to one side.

I decided to skip the “Five Lakes” hike I had considered tacking on to my day — I was tired and clouds seemed to be threatening to move in, and couldn’t bring myself to gain the extra elevation. Instead I cut across, still at around 2200m, towards Sunnega and its large lift station. After seeing almost no one on the trail all morning, suddenly I was inundated with people starting their day hikes from town, e-bikers zipping their way around the valley, and families with screaming children. As I rounded the corner below the lifts I was greeted by a bizarre sight at the Leisee. A brass band was wrapping up and a bilingual standup comedian was taking the stage, with an audience of at least a hundred people spread out along the banks of the small lake. Caterers seemed to be setting up a buffet. I waited for a moment, determined the food wouldn’t be available for another little bit, and decided to get away from the crowds.

I found myself passing Adler Hitta, an upscale mountain restaurant in Findeln that had always intrigued me. In winter they bring in DJs and have parties on the mountainside — but we would always go to Chez Vrony just up the road. I figured this was a decent chance to scope it out, and collapsed into a chair facing the mountain and pulled out my book until the kitchen opened and I could order. I claimed my spot for a long time, nursing a ginger beer and the world’s most expensive roast chicken (it was, however, very tasty). I was about halfway through my book, an Icelandic noir purchased in London on my last trip, and could have easily sat there all day. But feeling the pressure to spend more money, I decided to keep the train moving instead, and began gingerly picking my way downhill. My right knee seemed to have remembered what I did to it in Patagonia and decided to complain again, so with every step I winced a bit as I followed the steep and rocky path down to town. With no particular place to go and no plans, when I passed a bench on the trail I decided to drop my pack and took a quick trail nap before making my way back into civilization.

Zermatt is larger than I realized, and this trial dropped me in a part of town I had never been to before. I made my way past massive new hotels, finally re-orienting myself at the church, where I returned to the churchyard for my second nap there in two days. Thus recovered, I headed to the Zermatt campsite to check in. See, once Melissa and I decided to do the Hornlihutte I realized I would need to be in Zermatt early tomorrow — so no hut stay tonight. But a bed even in the youth hostel was already 150 CHF, thanks in part to crazy Zermatt prices and in part to the holiday. That was an absolute no from me, one of the cheapest people I know, so instead for 20 CHF I booked a pitch at the Zermatt campsite by the train station. I did bring most of my camping stuff but didn’t want to bother with a my tent, so for another 10 CHF I rented a cheap Decathlon pop up tent. Money well spent, if you ask me.

I spent the afternoon in said tent after recovering my sleeping bag and laptop from the station locker. I finished my book, took a nap, and even a shower — an unexpected luxury! In the evening I had the rest of my salami and cheese for a sort of sad dinner (had to counteract the expense of lunch somehow) and chatted a bit with my tent neighbor, a Norwegian named Patrick who had just achieved his life’s goal of climbing the Matterhorn. He had not slept a wink in the Hornlihutte out of anxiety and promptly fell asleep at 7pm.

Around this time I realized that my Swiss Army knife has everything but a bottle opener, and I did not want the Zermatt Brauerei beer I had just purchased to go to waste. So, I sidled up to two English climbers in a tent nearby and asked if they could open it for me. Unsurprisingly, this led to me sitting down to chat with them about mountaineering, at which point a second round was purchased, then a third…once the grocery store closed we headed into town where there was a Brazilian-Swiss fusion(?) band playing and Appenzellerbier on sale for 5CHF. Suffice it to say, it was fun but a weird evening, as we watched the most hyped-up Swiss crowd I have ever seen in my life. They even danced!

Unsurprisingly, I didn’t sleep much in the campsite, with the sound of goat bells that somehow seemed to be inside my tent and too many beers sloshing around in my stomach. I awoke to the concerning sound of rain pattering against my tent. When I finally gained the strength to stick my head outside, I couldn’t help but groan — where there had been a Matterhorn view yesterday was now an impenetrable ceiling of gray clouds. I snapped a photo to send to Melissa, who was already on the train and reporting sunny skies in Visp. As the rain turned to mist I began to pack up for the day, saying goodbye to the climbers (Ben and James), who said unconvincingly that we would probably get good weather above the clouds. “When you get up there, sit on the helipad around 5pm and have a few beers,” they suggested, “anyone coming down the mountain at that time really fucked it, so there is always drama.”

With that…interesting…advice I bid them farewell and went to once again stash my extraneous things in a train station locker. Melissa came to find me and I updated her on the past few days as we parked ourselves in a cafe for a quick breakfast and an assessment of the weather. One croissant later the clouds had not changed, so we figured me might as well just get this show on the road, avoiding goat shit in the street as we made our way to the Furi cable car. Soon we were heading up into the wall of white — conditions were so bad we couldn’t see the oncoming gondola cabin until it was essentially passing us. Nervously, we assured each other we would probably hike up above the clouds soon….but in the meantime we memorized the number for emergency rescue just in case.

Emerging at Schwarzsee, conditions had not improved. The whole situation was honestly comical as we cracked up, taking photos of the abyss around us. “The Matterhorn should be….there,” I gestured with my pole, and pointed out the viewpoint next to Schwarzsee. We crossed our fingers for better views tomorrow, or ideally later today, and began our climb. Picking our way up through a path of moss, stone, and some mud, we at least benefitted from the fact that the steep drop off to our sides was invisible in the clouds. We did pass a family of four (mother, father, six year old on foot, baby in a backpack carrier) who were struggling. The young son was crying as he slipped in the mud. Once we were safely out of earshot, we shook our heads and questioned the intelligence (and safety) of bringing kids on this trail in these conditions.

At Hirli, a ski station in the winter, there was an abrupt change in the scenery. All trace of green was gone, and the landscape was dominated by slate rock. We passed along a series of galleries — grated walkways protruding from the cliff. A big deal had been made of these online when I researched the trail…but other than a few loose and wobbly grates, they didn’t seem that scary. I wished there had been more. Finally the clouds were beginning to thin and we could just see the outline of the Matterhorn in the distance, though we still couldn’t make out the summit — or the hut we were headed to.

We continued to climb upward through a world of slate, as the sky clear we a bit more and the wind picked up. We stopped for a short break on a rock above the trail to snack on peanut M&Ms (the obvious hiking snack choice) and try to pick out our destination in the mist. From here the path actually flattened out a bit and we had an expansive view over an impressively large glacier on the Matterhorn’s north ridge and the Zmutt valley below. I realized uneasily that a small white dot in the valley was actually the Schoenbielhutte, where I would be bringing friends in a few weeks. Perhaps I had undersold the distance to them — oops.

But no time to worry about that, as the climbing began now in earnest. Some ropes and steps were now fastened to the mountainside, as we made our way sharply up. A German man passed us and informed us it was still a long way to go — thanks for that, buddy. We left the aids behind and slogged our way up scree-covered switchbacks, grateful that the path was dry. This would be treacherous in the rain. We had ended up back in the cloud so, thankfully, could not see the consequences of slipping (a sheer drop off the mountainside). After one last snack break, legs burning, we made it up to the sunny terrace of the Hornlihutte, at 3260m elevation. We checked in, dropped our stuff, and made quick work of lunch — a massive rösti for me and a pasta for her, both shockingly delicious given the location.

After lunch, the clouds suddenly parted and we were treated to the point of this trip — an up-close view of the Matterhorn from its base. The mountain was dusted in snow from the last few chilly weeks, and a few climbers were heading over to the start of the route to do recon ahead of their dawn start. From outside, we had an expansive view towards Briethorn and Monte Rosa and their respective glaciers. It was an impressive view, and one you can’t get from Zermatt town as these mountains are blocked by the foothills. As the clouds moved back in I headed upstairs for a much-needed nap. Afterwards, Melissa and I hiked over to the base as well — I wasn’t going to get this close and not touch the Matterhorn, obviously. As a joke we both scaled the first few rungs of the infamous starting pitch (a bottleneck that leaves hundreds of climbers waiting, cold, in the dark to start the climb), allowing us to say we had both climbed the Matterhorn.

With the return of clouds we hustled back to the warmth of the dining room, where we killed the hours until dinner playing card games. We chatted with our dinner partners — a Polish woman living in Visp and her Irish boyfriend — and then poked our heads outside to see that the most recent clouds had deposited an inch or two or snow over the terrace. Probably not a great omen for those looking to summit tomorrow…but we wouldn’t know, as they would be leaving by 4am. With that, it was time for bed at a very respectable hour. I had an early alarm set to catch the sunrise, and quickly conked out.

Sunrise the next morning was well worth it — warm alpenglow illuminated the silhouettes of rows and rows of mountains. Melissa did in the end drag herself outside to join me, and together we figured that we could see mountains as far as the other side of the Rhône valley — likely the peaks on our side of the Aletsch glacier. We waited, shivering, until light finally hit the Matterhorn and watched as it glowed red. Even this early, the headlamps of climbers were no longer visible. Over breakfast we watched as two climbers set out quite late, and one of the other patrons had set up a telescope that allowed us to trace their path. In the 15 hours or so we had spent up here, most of them had been spent studying the Hornligrat — the ridge climbers would use to summit. By the time we left we were intimately familiar with its bumps and crannies.

Melissa and I had to laugh as we went for the exact same breakfast options from the buffet — Americans think alike, I guess — and after a quick meal headed up for a quick nap (me) and then to pack up. I wanted to wait as late as possible to leave to let the snow melt a bit. We had watched some hikers leave at dawn, one of them slipping in the first few meters after the hut. He was fine but it could have ended extremely poorly — there was no reason to risk it. By the time I was ready it was 8am, but our departure was further delayed as we stopped to watch a helicopter rescue from the mountain. Air Zermatt pilots are incredibly talented, and it was insane to watch them circle, hover, snatch a climber off the ridge, and circle back to the hut so smoothly. A woman at the table next to me said she had heard it was a climber who was physically fine but lost their head and couldn’t get down — we can only hope so, as that is the best case scenario by far.

The clouds were back by the time we descended, making good time (but being very careful on the first steep switchbacks where we had seen the guy fall). Classically, it was remarkable and borderline frustrating to realize we had descended in 20 minutes what had taken us double that to climb the day before. We continued to make good time, booking it across the flat part and back down to Hirli, where we paused so I could take photos of some ibex that almost blended into the stone. Soon we were back in the land of grass and stone, and made it back to Schwarzsee — now unrecognizable in the sunlight. Another break to admire the mountain and marvel at the route we had just done, and then it was time to continue our descent. We followed the yellow Swiss hiking signs down towards Furi, at times heading straight down the fall line of the mountain, to our knees’ chagrin. Two mountaineers hiking up stopped us as we passed. “Are you coming from Hornlihutte or Gandegghutte? Is this the right way to Hornlihutte?” We assured them it was, wished them luck in their ascent, and once they had passed, privately celebrated that these guys had assumed we were coming from a hut and not “mere” day hikers.

After cutting through a forest, almost getting lost, and wandering through the gardens and chalets of Zum See, we plopped ourselves at the only non-reserved table at Restaurant Blatten, a favorite from past ski trips. Sitting on the same side of the table to continue to look at the mountain, we ordered mushroom pasta and fondue, never mind that it was only 11:40am. An ungodly amount of cream and melted cheese can only be followed by an appel strudel and chocolate cake. All of it was delicious, and we prepared to roll ourselves the rest of the way downhill after such a massive meal. A mere 20 minutes later and we had made it back to the Furi gondola terminal where we had started, though this time with a view. We snapped a celebratory photo and headed off to the Bahnhofstrasse for a quick shopping trip before heading home. We stopped for one more view of the mountain, shocked by how high up we had started our day, and boarded the train back home, to the relief of our legs. A successful long weekend in the books — but with more adventures to come!