Swiss Mountains: Klein Matterhorn
It’s snowing! Yippee!
Can you guess who has a ski trip planned for two weeks time? Correct, yours truly, and this weekend there was masses of snow in the mountains.
There aren’t many resorts open in the Alps at the moment, but Zermatt has a large summer ski area, and some of the winter runs are starting to be opened.
The key thing about Zermatt is, of course, the Matterhorn. If you have any inage in your head of what a Swiss mountain looks like, it’ll be the Matterhorn.
It’s the mountain that Toblerone was allegedly modelled on, and whilst it’s not the highest mountain in Switzerland, it’s pretty darn close.
It also has a slightly smaller sibling, the Klein Matterhorn (literally Small Matterhorn – the Swiss had their logical hat on when naming this one!). Not quite so dramatic, but it does have a very similar shape, as you can see by comparing the two photos.
And the slopes surrounding the Klein Matterhorn are where the early-opening ski runs are located, check here for availability.
The cable car takes you up to over 3800m above sea level (12,780 ft) and from there in Winter you can ski down to the village 2000m (7000 ft) lower. It’s the highest cable car in Europe, even higher than the Jungfrau’s “Top of Europe”. So definitely a worthwhile trip!
One thing to note: it’s flippin’ cold! It tends to be windy, so wind chill brings the temperature down to -30C or lower, so dress properly. Sorry to sound like your Mother, but you really do not want frostibite.
Photos: beccafrog
3 Comments
I just did a post on the first snow of the year as well, only our snow was not quite so dramatric.
hello
how possible to get the summit wavoo!!
You can get to the summit of the Klein Matterhorn with the help of about 4 cable cars.
To get to the top of the real Matterhorn, you’ll need to be fit, have a guide and be prepared for a bit of a climb…