While we’ve been lucky to have beautiful weather during the last two days while we’ve been by Zermatt, today the weather turned for the worse. Lots of clouds! In the afternoon, the Matterhorn was no longer visible for the first time during our time here. We ended up taking the train from Gornergrat to Zermatt and then the gondola and aerial tram up to Trockener Steg. We ended up doing a short hike and then returning to Zermatt as the weather wasn’t getting any better.
Gornergrat
Although it was cloudy in the early morning after sunrise, we could still see some blue sky and parts of the Matterhorn. It was quite nice and luckily still not too cold outside.
Later on in the morning, the cloud cover increase though there was still some blue sky visible. There were brief periods where nothing could be seen as a cloud passed through the area.
A bit later on though, it became consistently cloudy.
Gornergrat to Zermatt
It was still consistently cloudy at Gornergrat when we took the cog wheel train down.
It got a bit better as we descended and by the time we saw the Riffelsee, which we hiked to yesterday, it was only a bit foggy.
Everything looked similar yet different under a solid cover of cloud.
Only hints of the Matterhorn, our near constant companion for the past two days, could be seen. Here, we passed by the cairn Matterhorn with only bits of the real one visible.
We passed by the little chapel near the end of our hike to Riffelberg yesterday.
As we descended past Riffelberg, we started to see the valley below as well as many fall colors on the trees.
As we descended, it became apparent that at the treeline, fall foliage was at or near peak.
We passed by some really beautiful fall foliage as we continued to descend.
We started to see the buildings in Zermatt as we continued downwards. The trees started looking greener at this lower altitude.
Bahnhof Zermatt GGB to Zermatt Gondola Terminal
We walked through town up to the lower gondola terminal, the same walk that we did two days ago when arriving. However, this time we walked by the river.
Zermatt Up To Furi
Just like two days ago, we got our own gondola up to Furi.
Furi
We briefly walked outside to take a look at the surrounding area at Furi. There are a few sparsely located buildings nearby. The trees all look beautiful as the majority are showing fall colors.
Furi to Trockener Steg
We waited a few minutes for the aerial tram to return to Furi for the ride up to Trockener Steg.
The aerial tram wasn’t too busy though there were still a good number of people onboard. We stood by the window that faces the Matterhorn. There was no sign of it at all, it was completely obscured by clouds.
Trockener Steg
After arriving at Trockener Steg, we walked outside to take a look. Visibility wasn’t fantastic below the clouds but we could still see all of Zermatt in the valley below.
We could even see Gornergrat though a small gap in the clouds!
Visibility above was a different story though. The clouds were somewhere between us and the upper aerial tram terminal at Klein Matterhorn. We checked out the webcam at the peak and absolutely nothing was visible beyond one or two hundred feet.
We swapped lenses to the telephoto to take a look around. Gornergrat was starting to become obscured by clouds.
The glacier next to it, Gornergletscher, was still visible though. Like everything else that was far away, it wasn’t too clear given today’s weather conditions.
We also looked at the three glaciers that were visible above us. We could see them but again visibility was poor.
We could see Riffelberg.
We pointed back towards Gornergrat and could only see a tiny bit of one of the buildings. We could still see what is probably the upper aerial tram terminal at Hohtälli.
Switching back to the wide angle lens, we caught a nearly empty aerial tram going up to Klein Matterhorn. Not much to see up there given the weather!
We decided to hike to the relatively large lake nearby rather than go up to see fog.
We passed by a small pond on the way. It likely would have provided beautiful reflections if there was anything to see!
The trail down appears to be a maintenance road that is currently being used for some construction that is taking place. It is rather steep in parts but otherwise an easy walk. We soon spotted another tiny pond and saw the lake we were hiking to in the background.
This tiny pond was very shallow but very clear. And again nicely reflective.
We soon were pretty close to the lake, though still above it. There was a steep slope preventing us from going directly down to its edge. If the weather was better, we would have seen the Matterhorn in the background here.
We continued on the trail, or rather road, until it got down to lake level. When looking back, we could see that the clouds had descended.
The lake is used as a reservoir for snowmaking in the winter. A small amount of water is allowed to flow out of the lake, though we don’t know if this is the case all the time. We saw a bit tricking down the mountain.
We sat on a sloped concrete barrier at the edge of the lake for awhile before making our way back to the aerial tram station.
Upon returning, we saw a departing aerial tram on its way up, headed into the clouds.
Trockener Steg Down to Furi
We once again looked at the Klein Matterhorn webcam and saw that there was still no significant visibility. It was very cloudy at Trockener Steg as well. We decided to take the aerial tram down. We got on and faced towards the opposite side compared to when we ascended. Like when we rode this tram down two days ago, there were a good amount of skiers onboard but it wasn’t fully packed.
Although it was very cloudy, we could at least see some ground below us.
We saw the other aerial tram as we reached the mid point of the route. This was just above the treeline. We started to see fall colored trees below us as well as a significant stream of water.
We saw some nice fall colors as we descended!
Furi Down to Zermatt
We were able to get off the aerial tram near the front of the crowd and rushed towards the gondola. We managed to get there quick enough that we snagged one for ourselves! We enjoyed the beautiful fall colors before arriving back in town.
Zermatt
After arriving, we walked back towards the town center where we ended our day.
While we were hiking at Trockener Steg, we met a man from North Carolina and a woman from Ohio. Both had just arrived today and headed up despite the weather since Zermatt is a long way to go from anywhere! We were lucky to be able to get two days of beautiful weather with views of the Matterhorn, all the other surrounding mountains, and the glaciers!
Ultimately, the weather did not improve at all today. We’ll see what it looks like tomorrow! If it is good, we may hang around until the afternoon, otherwise, we’ll head out to our last destination of this trip.