Hope and Peace and Pain – Part 5

This is the fifth and final installment of an article that first appeared in Trail & Timberline magazine. Read the first installment here. Read the second installment here. Read the third installment here. Read the fourth installment here.

The Walker’s Haute Route takes trekkers through the alps from Chamonix, France, to Zermatt, Switzerland.

See a gallery of photos from the route here.

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Day 12 | St. Niklaus to Europa Hut
We start our final push up the Mattertal valley, toward the iconic Matterhorn, with another intrepid refusal. While many people take the bus to the village of Gasenried to begin the Europaweg (the trail that runs up-valley high on the shoulder of the Mattertal), we decide our young minds, legs, and feet can carry us more satisfactorily. So we sweat our way up, rising high above the clutter of arteries, both road and rail, that squeeze through the neck of this glacial gorge.

With the Bernese Alps above Interlacken now at our backs, we rise higher still and gain immaculate views of glaciers, peaks, rivulets, waterfalls, rockslides, clinging hamlets, delicate meadows, and the steep and dramatic topography that Switzerland is so famous for. And the trail slices right through it all.

Well, soon after Brianna begins to question the trail, the “weg” (way) in Europaweg, as the way seems to be washed away by rock slides, avalanche, and glacial detritus. Now and again, we pass through exposed sections with signs that, when translated, read, “Run, but do so slowly” and frail-looking bridges with warning signs that actually say “Not swing!” It makes for our longest day. But, it is perhaps the most beautiful day, as well, with glimpses of the crooked finger that is the Matterhorn, and constant views of the imposing, monstrous Weisshorn and the many lesser, but no less interesting, peaks and glaciers that defy gravity, like cookie batter clinging to tree bark.

The heights, the precarious ledges, our dashes across sheer, sand-slope washes, make for a mentally taxing, physically demanding day, and the elevation gain of 5,200 feet satisfies us all the more. It’s official: We’re both bloody masochists.

Finally, we arrive at the Europahütte knowing we sleep on the floor. When they run out of room in the dorm beds, they open up the dining room for extras. And, tonight, we’re extra.

Over dinner, as if our brains hadn’t been stressed enough, we have a remarkable, but mind-numbing conversation with Florian (a native of nearby St. Niklaus) and Stefanie (from Strasbourg, France) in a dizzying combination of German, Schwyzerdütsch (the local dialect), French, and English, or “Freutsch” as I like to call it. Our heads hurt. Their heads hurt.

We drink beers, big and small, and Brianna finally drinks the glass bottle of wine that she bought in Zinal three days earlier!

Day 13 | Europa Hut to Zermatt
Could it be?! We had seen it the night before. We were told it was only three weeks old. With Florian’s binoculars I can see the prayer flags. And then, after dashing under an icy waterfall, we arrive at a brand new, Swiss-engineered, rockfall-defying, heart-palpitation-inducing, suspension bridge, the likes of which I have never seen before.

Strung between two rock precipices, over a filthy slope of crumbling stone and sand, it seems like an improvement over trying to cross this stretch of rockslide highway. And, it isn’t too bad, except for the part where you can look down to the chasm we are floating over and see the avalanche tunnel that has disintegrated under the crush of falling rock, presumably prompting the construction of this marvel of mountain trail enhancement.

It takes six and a half minutes of constant, steady walking to get across. I know, I have a video of the entire thing. A few deep breaths for Brianna and she’s ready for solid ground again.

For a final day, we couldn’t be luckier with the weather, the temperatures, the scenery, or the company. We cruise much of the rest of the day with views of our new favorite mountain, the Matterhorn. We cannot take our eyes off it, with every step we see a new wrinkle, a better angle, a finer detail on its many weathered faces.

Did I say we were lucky? That is until we arrive at the Winkelmatten trail. On any other day, we’d be able to leisurely stroll on the partially paved trail and, in fact, there were families of smoking Dutch and baby-laden Italians doing just that alongside us. But now, oddly, they are doing all the passing.

Twelve and a half days after originally feeling excruciating pain, Brianna’s knee finally decides to return to threat level nine. We limp arm in arm through the peaceful village of Winkelmatten, then wrestle through the scrum that is Zermatt proper during its summer heritage festival.

We calculate that camping and eating in this luxurious and posh village will be almost as expensive as staying in a hotel we already know, Hotel Bahnhof, and cooking dinner in their fabulous kitchen. We trade the bad luck of a busted knee for the good luck of claiming the last room for the night, and have ourselves pleasant dreams.

Vive Le Haute Route!

40,646 feet of elevation gain

38,852 feet of elevation loss

114.4 miles

13 days

11 passes

6 Snickers

4 new friends

3 walking sticks

2 feet + 2 feet

1 Matterhorn

0 chairlifts, buses, trains, or cars