We've had our eye on this one for a long time, five lakes way up high here with only a small window of access because the snow melts so late. Perfect timing now to do this, book a hotel so we can do the long hike the day before and take advantage of the tourist cards offered by hotels for free rides on cable cars, and middle-of-the-week off-season = fewer people.
But one thing we forgot yet again, the chair lift time table!!! Got to the lower chair lift station to find out the upper section runs only on weekends in September.... oh no, how does this keep happening?!
SOOOOO..... quick change of plans again: On the map, showing as starting from the top of Chair-Lift Number 1 was a 3-hour round tour to a place called "Glacier View" -- descriptive enough -- and it turned out to be as wonderful of a day as we could have hoped for. Perhaps not the larger view of the glacier that we had expected (who knows?) but vistas (hating to use this cliché yet again) "to take your breath away". Sky so clear we could see all the way to Mount Matterhorn.
It still meant a hefty 400m climb, but getting to a spot high above the glacier tongue, with steep rock walls and bits of glacier all around, peaceful and warm and no other people... it was heaven. And the fall colours of the bracken here high above the tree line: a veritable patchwork carpet of reds, yellows, greens... it was impossible to capture the true colours on a camera.
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| View out the balcony window of the hotel, early morning sun on Mount Weisshorn |
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| Checking out the weather from the Hotel balcony, it's looking good for where we want to go! |
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| We were in no hurry, taking a stroll through the pretty village, having a coffee at a bakery in the early morning sunshine. |
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| When we got to the chair lift station we found out the second part wasn't running, but there was a nice hike we could do from the top of the first part, so up we went. |
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| The second chairlift only runs on weekends in September, apparently. So we'll go up to the top next year... |
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| We saw this option on a brochure, and turned out to be perfect. There was 400m of uphill to get to the glacier viewpoint, but the weather was perfect for the hike. |
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| Heading along the mountain flank toward to the Fiescher Glacier |
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| Stunning view down the Fiescher Valley. In the background, Mount Weisshorn, and the Mischabel Group, which includes the tallest peak that is 100% on Swiss territory: Mount Dom. In between the tip of Mount Matterhorn |
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| The tallest peak in this range is called Mount Wannenhorn, same name as our hotel. The glacier flows down this valley |
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| To the Southeast, the Matterhorn is showing up more and more as we move further North |
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| Zoomed view of Mount Matterhorn, always a treat to look at. |
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| As we approach the glacier viewpoint, a cleft in the cliffs gives a glimpse of the river that runs out of the glacier |
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| In the back, Mount Wannenhorn. At the official "Glacier Viewpoint" we couldn't actually see the glacier, so we continued a short piece further to find out own meadow spot. |
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| This is where we stopped for our picnic lunch. Below is the glacier tongue, difficult to see as the ice is covered in gravel and dirt. |
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| We spent an hour up here enjoying the sunshine and solitude. It was wonderful. AND we saw the glacier |
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| This is as much as we saw of the Fiescher Glacier from here, but it was beautiful and Mount Finsteraarhorn is now my favourite mountain |
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| This is a panorama view of what we looked at while having our picnic lunch |
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| Heading back along a higher trail |
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| Looking backwards along the higher trail |
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| Road back to the chair lift station: Below is Bellwald |
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| The colours of the hillside are difficult to capture with my camera |
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| Heading back down to Bellwald. From here we still hade to walk about 10 minutes down to the other side of the village to catch the next cable car down to the Rhone Valley |
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| Our hotel, which is right next to the cable car station which takes you down to the railway in the Rhone Valley |
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| Small cable car from Bellwald down to the railway station at Fürgangen, on the Oberwald-Visp line. The suspension bridge is very new. We were here in 2014, walking on the other side, and had to descend into the ravine in order to get to this railway station. |
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| Heading back to Andermatt along the Urseren Valley... beautiful Autumn afternoon sunshine up here. |
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| And every time we pass this way we are tickled to get a glimpse of the smallest village in Switzerland: Zumdorf |
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| Our two-day trip: 6 hours walking on Day 1 and 3.5 hours on Day 2 |
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| And four days later the top of the mountain (where the second chairlift was only running on weekends) looked like this.... |
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