Gornergrat, Riffelsee and the Matterhorn

It’s 3 minutes past nine and I’m sat in the station half asleep and waiting on the most expensive train ride I’ll probably ever take. The Gornergrat Bahn is the highest (and oldest functioning) open air railway in Europe. It takes passengers up to the rocky ridge of Gornergrat at 3100 meters. As I board I ask the conductor if the windows open, he doesn’t understand me at first and so I point to the window beside me and mime opening them. He wins the game of charades and tells me confidently that ‘no, they are closed’. I’m a little miffed that the windows don’t open but as I sit in my seat I decide to give it a shot and sure enough, the window opens… as do all the windows in the carriage. Heavens knows what the conductor thought I was asking.

The moment we start to climb, I get my first full view of the Matterhorn and I’m absolutely smitten. There’s something about these iconic mountain peaks that just leaves you in awe. And while I have no desire to actually scale the thing, I can understand the obsession that the first climbers must have had in the pursuit of getting to the summit.

The peak of the Gornergrat overlooks the Matterhorn as well as the Gorner glacier. You can see the path that the glacier has taken over time, the movement somehow visible in frozen ice. I spend ages gawking and taking photos, grinning the whole time. My plan is to hike down but first I take a wander around the visitor centre on the top. First stop is to buy water, since I realised once I was on the train that I’d made a rookie error and left the bottle I’d filled up, in the hostel toilet 🤦🏻‍♀️
Water (presumably infused with caviar given that it costs me £4.50) in hand, I stumble across a little chapel and then find my way into the visitors centre. It’s filled with stories of Matterhorn ascents- solo ascents with just teddy bears for company (‘exactly the mental support needed’ according to the climber), the ascent of the future pope in 1889, the oldest ascent (89 years old) to the youngest (8 years old). I find a room with hanging seats and VR headsets and next thing I know I’m virtually paragliding around the Matterhorn.

On the top of the Gornergrat there’s a number of shops. Some selling standard touristy T-shirts and badges, others selling Swiss watches, chocolate and cheese. I stumble across one selling Swiss Army Knives and after a quick flashback to breaking into Rosie’s safe box in Girona, I realise that if I need one souvenir from Switzerland (and this trip), it’s a Swiss Army knife (after all, a girl can never have too many knives 💅🏼💁🏻‍♀️). I pick out the one I want and the saleswoman tells me it’s free engraving if there’s anything I want added. I write out the phrase ‘Per Ardua Ad Astra’. She smiles, plugs it into the machine and asks me ‘Latin? What does it mean’. I explain, ‘through hardship to the stars’ and that it was a phrase that took on huge personal significance when I was dealing with hyperthermia and my body going into shut down on a trek in Nepal. She asks me which route and next thing I know we’re chatting about the Annapurna region as she’s been trekking there too. She notes that she had an advantage with the altitude, working at 3000m daily. She asks where I’m from and when I say Scotland she tells me I know mountains too then. I make a noncommittal noise and tell her not like this. She laughs and says the grass is always greener, ‘when you’re Swiss you think Scotland is wonderful and when you’re Scottish you think Switzerland is wonderful’. I laugh politely all while thinking that while I love Scotland and our mountains, they’re not quite like this.

Budget firmly drained, I begin the descent. I hop down a station on the train to find the trailhead and then after topping up with suncream it’s down we go. The hike takes me down facing the Matterhorn most of the way, with the odd detour to see lakes, flanked once again with the Matterhorn. The route is absolutely gorgeous, the weather is perfect and I’m fairly sure I smile all the way. What should have been an hour and a half’s hike turns into hours as I can barely move 100m without wanting to take another photo. Eventually though I make it down to the station I need to get to and hop on the last section of the train down to Zermatt and fall straight into bed.Read more