(all pictures are High res, for low res click here)
Eventually, we made our way to the final climbing town,
Zermatt, Switzerland.
. Zermatt,
is a quaint town about double the size of Wengen ("I'd
like a double Wengen, baby!") and is home to the
Matterhorn
(the
view from my hotel room!) and
Monte Rosa
(seen above). Before we would begin our climbing, I took some time to walk
around the village. The village is not really that old by European standards,
but these huts have all been built by the earliest inhabitants. Notice how they
are built on stilts to keep the rats out (or as
Vince mentioned, a
rat would have to climb a 5.14 to get into any of these houses).
While in
Zermatt, I also spent a few humbling moments to visit the Zermatt climbers
cemetery.
As I
continued my walk about beautiful Zermatt,
I
stopped at the Zermatt Alpine Museum,
where they had
Edward Whymper's
iceaxe
and rope
that he
used on the first ascent of the
Matterhorn. Also at the mueseum were other artifacts including some of the
first boots used on Everest
as well
as a collection of old iceaxes.
Later that day the drama with my guide continued. It appears
that Lansing has had enough of our guide and the climb and has decided to pass
on Monte Rosa. My guide then spends a bit of time convincing me that we
shouldn't climb Monte Rosa because of our speed. Sheesh! I didn't think we were
going that sHigh!?!? Paul may be a good climber, but he was really showing his
immaturity as a guide. I am sure that he had some other motives behind not
climbing, but so be it. For an alternative set of climbs, he suggested that we
spend one day climbing the
Riffelhorn
and one
day climbing
Pollux.
The
Riffelhorn (2927 m) is a fairly easy rock climb, class 4 scrambling with a
couple of class 5.6+ pitches. Mostly this is bolted sport climbing, depending on
the route you choose. I still was not happy with my guide, but at this point I
didn't have much choice. I joined him on the climb, and it was actually fun --
but it just wasn't Monte Rosa.
At
the bottom of the route, we were given some great views of Monte Rosa (seen
above) and the Matterhorn.
The next day we took the
telepheric up to
Klein Matterhorn
and
proceeded to cross the glacier
behind the
Breithorn
and head
up the back side of Pollux. The route was pretty frozen, as we started the climb
with some easy angled ice climbing, folHighed by moderate rock climbing which was
enhanced with the use of a fixed line (in this case the fixed line was a chain).
At the top of the rock climbing pitches, was a statue of Madonna with Child
- we sat
here for a few minutes to eat lunch, then we dropped our packs and headed up the
50 degree knife ridge
to the
summit (4092 m).
. For a
few moments I was actually happy again
, as the
views were spectacular
(Monte
Rosa) -
(Castor)
.
The next day, my guide kinda dissed me on another climb, so I
just basically decided to hang out in Zermatt, take a few more pictures of this
cool village
(yes,
they actually herd goats thru the streets)
(train
station) and find a nice to tree to sit under and read a
book. It was a needed rest day, as I was leaving in 2 days to climb
Kilimanjaro and I really didn't want to be around Paul
anymore.
Finally, we ended the trip with a long but scenic drive back to
Zurich
. Along
the way there were tons of
crotch rockets
passing us at every turn, as this drive was very popular with sport
motorcyclists.
(check
out the winding road).
For lunch we stopped at
Furkapass (7, 500 ft), home to the Rhone Glacier
, a tiny
restaurant and a great stop for sport bikes.
At the
pass, we also found an unusual 2 person, electrically aided, aerodynamic
bicycle.
. Once in
Zurich, I was happy to be rid of Paul. I spent the next day doing my own tour of
the city,
where I
noticed yet another unusual bike. This is a special series
BMW C1 motorbike that is not
available in the US.
. Bikes
seemed to be the theme for the last couple days, as I walked past St. Peter's
Church
(which
claims to have
the largest clock face in Europe)
, I
literally stumbled upon a bike race. As I found out, this was no ordinary bike
race, it was the Zurich World Cup .
I got to watch America's cycling hero,
Lance Armstrong finish third -- well, at a bike race you really only see
them fly past you for about 5 seconds, then you watch most of the race on the
big jumbotron.
Lastly,
I spent a few moments to actually go into St. Peter's Church and climb it's
tower.
The view from above was great!
At last, my European portion of my journey had come to an end. I had a great time, and I learned a great lesson - don't climb with guides you are not sure of. I also learned that I probably won't climb with IMG again, either.
Now it was off to the airport to catch a flight to Nairobi, Kenya and begin my trip to the top of the tallest peak in Africa, Kilimanjaro.