We are almost done with Europe! Wow! Here, my friends, is the Matterhorn, known as Zermatt. Zermatt is a little, crazy, totally touristy town. I liked Murren better, but Zermatt was still a lot of fun with beautiful things to see.
If you have lived back east, you have probably seen slate roofs with little shingles made of slate. In Zermatt, the slate shingles are huge!
Ryan in downtown Zermatt. We were there on the first week of the summer season and it was already crazy crazy.
Our first morning we of course had to take a psycho hike. We hiked from the valley floor up to the Horlihutte (the climbers hut where the climbers stay the night before they summit). Ryan did look into actually climbing the Matterhorn, but it's over $1,000 to get a guide service and that really is the smartest way to do it. Every year they have at least one death of someone trying it without a guide. I'm not surprised, the rock is really loose and at peak season there can be as many as 170 people a day on the mountain trying to summit!
This is a sampling of a Swiss trail - steep!
The trails in Murren were really well marked but we had a harder time in Zermatt. Luckily, we could see our goal the whole time. We ended up going through this really pretty area with a beautiful creek.
Pretty, pretty, pretty.
Somewhere on this trail we met a group of Japanese tourists with their guide. They had ridden the cable car up to the restaurant in the valley below the trail to the hut and were taking the long way down. It's always fun to surprise people when Ryan breaks out in Japanese - big blond American just spoke Japanese - cool! They got a kick out of it.
The hut is on the first gray hump above a patch of snow (not the one on the right, that is a different hut. . . lots of huts).
At the hut. It was a hard hike. When we got up we met two guys who had tried to summit that morning but had come back down after about half way. They decided it was a good day to stay alive - good choice boys. They thought I was crazy hiking in my tennies.
The view from the hut.
More view.
This is the trail down from the hut. This was the first day the hut was open so helicopters were shuttling up food and supplies. Just as we started down, a helicopter headed down too. The pilots swooped down the ridge like it was a roller coaster ride. They were so close I could see their faces and boy did they look like they were having a grand time!
Swiss hiking signs (and Ryan not getting a sunburn).
Me being goofy.
Mountains, mountains everywhere.
Zermatt from above. Every window in the town faces the mountain!
Ryan loved these little blue flowers. The photo doesn't capture the vibrancy of the blue.
Me, the mountain, and the Dr. Wilberg keeping me going. This was our last day in Zermatt; we flew home the next day. We took another hike up the far side of the valley with great far away views of the mountain. We got a little lost, almost died coming down a rock slide and I, at least, was tired at the end of the day. I was amazed at Ryan's energy; the man does not stop!
More crazy flowers growing out of rock.
And then, we flew home. Our flight was WAY better coming home, except for the movie choices - smut, smut, smut, and I'll leave it at that.
It was a fantastic trip - two weeks, beautiful, interesting places, my boy all to myself and the kids the whole time having a jolly good romp at Grandma's!
Sage got a huge kick out of Sarah.
Grandpa's truck is great fun - I think they were pretending to be dogs riding in the back of the truck.
Then Zoe showed up and the doggy impersonations continued on the lawn. David is the master of imagination and has great ideas that all the kids love. Zoe is long suffering and puts up with all kinds of silliness.
Isaac was a fine male companion for all the frivolity. He has become super picky about his clothes - tucked in shirt, belt and if it can be managed, he likes his underwear to match his shirt.
Katie Gail is truly a lovely person inside and out. Aunt Jessica is so mean and won't let me keep her. She and Nora should really live next door to one another. I keep telling Uncle Brian that Arizona is nice and warm (he freezes in Utah), but they aren't falling for it.
Sage on the very cool butterfly bench. She is precious and we all have a terrible crush on her and work very hard for her love.
After the gardens, we dressed up and had a princess picnic under the rose arbor. The kids ate princess peanut butter sandwiches, princess potato chips, purple princess grapes, and drank princess punch. The grown ups had tuna - tasty.
Dinner was followed by 30 minutes of a princess movie and then off to get our princess beauty rest. As you can see below, everyone was still exhausted the next morning. I was a grand party; perfect for the 4 year old crowd.
Yep, zucchini ; you would think I was lacing it with arsenic.
Oh yea, and mushrooms - oh the HORROR!
Squash = evil.
When we left for Europe, Sarah could barely scoot and couldn't sit up by herself. Two weeks later, when we returned, she was crawling, sitting, and pulling up! Cousin Christian inspired her to greatness and she has been VERY busy ever since. This was one of her favorite spots. She could pull out all of Grandpa's study material and rip to her hearts content.
Mel, Jess and I did a one week musical theater camp for the ward kids, who did GREAT, I was so impressed. The kids had fun helping Aunt Mel choreograph Singin' in the Rain.
Ahh, sunshine that is warm on the skin but not hot! I love Idaho in the Summer.
Oh yea, she also learned how to climb the stairs.
Aunt Mel had a fantastic Hawaiian birthday party, lava cupcakes, shiskabobs, paper flower and fruit loop leis - fantastic!
We are almost done with Europe! Wow! Here, my friends, is the Matterhorn, known as Zermatt. Zermatt is a little, crazy, totally touristy town. I liked Murren better, but Zermatt was still a lot of fun with beautiful things to see.
If you have lived back east, you have probably seen slate roofs with little shingles made of slate. In Zermatt, the slate shingles are huge!
Ryan in downtown Zermatt. We were there on the first week of the summer season and it was already crazy crazy.
Our first morning we of course had to take a psycho hike. We hiked from the valley floor up to the Horlihutte (the climbers hut where the climbers stay the night before they summit). Ryan did look into actually climbing the Matterhorn, but it's over $1,000 to get a guide service and that really is the smartest way to do it. Every year they have at least one death of someone trying it without a guide. I'm not surprised, the rock is really loose and at peak season there can be as many as 170 people a day on the mountain trying to summit!
This is a sampling of a Swiss trail - steep!
The trails in Murren were really well marked but we had a harder time in Zermatt. Luckily, we could see our goal the whole time. We ended up going through this really pretty area with a beautiful creek.
Pretty, pretty, pretty.
The hut is on the first gray hump above a patch of snow (not the one on the right, that is a different hut. . . lots of huts).
At the hut. It was a hard hike. When we got up we met two guys who had tried to summit that morning but had come back down after about half way. They decided it was a good day to stay alive - good choice boys. They thought I was crazy hiking in my tennies.
The view from the hut.
More view.
This is the trail down from the hut. This was the first day the hut was open so helicopters were shuttling up food and supplies. Just as we started down, a helicopter headed down too. The pilots swooped down the ridge like it was a roller coaster ride. They were so close I could see their faces and boy did they look like they were having a grand time!
Swiss hiking signs (and Ryan not getting a sunburn).
Me being goofy.
Mountains, mountains everywhere.
Zermatt from above. Every window in the town faces the mountain!
Ryan loved these little blue flowers. The photo doesn't capture the vibrancy of the blue.
Me, the mountain, and the Dr. Wilberg keeping me going. This was our last day in Zermatt; we flew home the next day. We took another hike up the far side of the valley with great far away views of the mountain. We got a little lost, almost died coming down a rock slide and I, at least, was tired at the end of the day. I was amazed at Ryan's energy; the man does not stop!
More crazy flowers growing out of rock.
Remember the nice lady at church in Interlaken? She gave us coupons from her grocery store for a SMOKING good deal to ride the the train up to the Jungfraujoch, the highest train in Europe. It takes you up to the base of the north face of the Eiger then INTO the Eiger. There are 2 short stops inside the mountain where they have tunnelled out for a view of the glacier then you go through the Monk and arrive at the pass between the Monk and the Jungfrau.
They had a groomed trail on the glacier past the Monk where climbers were doing practice summits and all the way around to the pass between the Monk and the Eiger to a climbers hut there. It was really beautiful (are you tired of that word yet??) and the weather was like great spring skiing in a t-shirt - lovely.
Inside the station there are, of course, shops, restaurants, and observation points. They also have what they call an ice palace, basically a gallery of ice sculptures carved in the glacier - it was freezing, but cool. By this time, I was really tired (from the crazy hike the day before) and had a headache from altitude sickness, so we were taking it easy). We ate our lunch up on the top and then headed down to the Lauterbrunner valley to watch base jumpers and take a flat walk.
Sorry of this is a little weird, but I loved the cemeteries - every grave is a flower box beautifully tended by the family. Much nicer than fake flowers here in the states, I think.
I took this picture for Mel. I think we should plant grass and daisies on top of the woodshed!
Here I am pointing up to the little dance floor we had been on the day before, it's the flat place below the little horn.
