After hitting up the grocery store for breakfast for the week, we made our way down to the Gornergrat Railway station, which is located just opposite the main station. The Gornergrat is a peak along the ridgeline of the mountains opposite the Matterhorn. If you want fantastic sweeping views of the Matterhorn, head up the Gornergrat Bahn (bahn=railway) to the last stop at the top. The Gornergrat Bahn is a cogwheel railway and is Europe’s highest open air railway, and the second highest railway in Europe after the Jungfrau railway. Cogwheel railways basically have an extra track in the middle that a cog attaches to and are found on steep mountains. The cog helps haul the train up the mountain. For the trip up, sit on the right side for fantastic views of the Matterhorn. The windows are very large and you’ll have excellent views. There are several lower stops on the railway that take you to various mountain resorts, ski pistes, and trailheads. We took the train all the way to the top and paused for photos at the scenic lookout. In the winter there is also a ski piste that leaves right from the train drop-off. There is also an observation platform, restaurant, shopping, and even a hotel.
We opted to get right to it and donned our snowshoes right away. For this hike, we combined two snowshoe trails: the Challenge trail and the Panorama trail. The Challenge trail starts from the Gornergrat station and almost parallels the railway line. Winter hiking and snowshoe trails are generally well marked with bright pink poles every hundred meters or so, in addition to the stamped down trail laid by hikers who have gone before. The Challenge trail shares the first few meters with the ski piste, so make sure to stay to one side and out of the way of skiers and snowboarders. It then leaves the piste and takes you around rocky outcroppings and snow covered hills down to the Rotenboden stop. The entire way you are treated to gorgeous views of the Matterhorn with snow covered landscapes in the foreground. There are a couple of hills that you have to negotiate down that can be a bit steep, but they are not very long. Just be careful, try to avoid rocks and icy patches, and follow the pink poles. The trail ends at the Rotenboden stop and connects immediately with the Panorama trail. If you go up to the train stop, there is a cute photo opportunity with a Toblerone sign.
The Panorama trail also had sweeping panoramic winter views and was flatter with fewer hills to navigate. If you only want to do one snowshoe trail, this should be it. Both trails were only about an hour long. They are fairly popular so we did come across maybe five or six other hikers in passing, but it was otherwise far less crowded than the ski pistes and we had uninterrupted views. The Panorama trail ends at the Riffelburg train stop. There is also a ski school at Riffelburg as well as the end runs of a couple ski pistes, as well as a hotel and a couple restaurants restaurant. The open restaurant when we were there was the self service one with standard ski restaurant fare. If you sit outside you get additional lovely views of the mountains. Because of the geography of the mountain, there are no other winter trails that leave from Riffelburg so we took the train back down to Zermatt.
After getting cleaned up, we ventured out for dinner. We decided to try Le Mazot, which was just around the corner from our accommodation. Le Mazot specializes in grilled meats, particularly Argentinian beef. We opted for lamb and chicken entrees, with risotto on the side. The portion sizes were huge. The chicken was a whole (albeit small) grilled chicken. Everything was perfectly cooked and delicious. The risotto is made in house every day and the waitress was particularly proud of it. Overall it was an excellent meal and a great way to celebrate Christmas Eve.
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