In mid-May (2019, yes that was 9 months ago), a friend proposed an early June hiking trip to Zermatt, Switzerland. Unable to resist the excitement of a relatively spontaneous long weekend, i accepted the invite and bought flights. After starting to plan the trip, however, we recognized that we may have jumped the gun by buying flights before doing any research. We pored over lists of trails, nearly all of which were marked as closed until mid-June or later. Alpine hikes need a lot more time for snow to melt than someone who grew up in mountainless Minnesota might realize. Though nervous about how much hiking we’d be able to do, we stuck to our plan and didn’t let the potential for ice and snow get in the way of a long weekend in the Swiss Alps.
My friend Nate and I flew into Geneva on Thursday. After an hour in the rental car, we arrived in Chamonix, France where we spent the night. We woke up to see that we were surrounded by mountains - I love arriving somewhere in the dark and waking up to a beautiful view. The local park headquarters pointed us toward a mostly snow-free ascent that was accessible from town and up we went. Nate is a runner and faster and fitter than me, so I worked hard all morning and afternoon to keep up. A few hours and several ibex sightings into the hike, we reached the peak. On the sun-facing side, where we hiked, there was a little snow toward the top but the trail was otherwise clear. On the other side was several feet of snow. Had we been there later in the summer, we could’ve made the trek a loop by hiking down on the far side of the mountain, but we had to hike back the way we came to avoid getting lost in the snow.
After finishing our day hike Nate and I drove to Switzerland where we caught a train to Zermatt, a city that doesn’t allow cars. We met up with the rest of our group (Connor, Andrew, and Adam) and checked into our Airbnb. The next morning we got moving early (well, as early as you’d expect a group of 5 men in their late twenties to get moving) to give us a full day to enjoy the 5 Lakes Trail. Everything on official Swiss websites said that this trail wasn’t technically open yet, but recent comments on AllTrails indicated that the trail was hikeable, albeit a bit muddy and snowy. I also confirmed that plenty of photos with a geotag near the trail were being shared on Instagram, which is a surprisingly useful technique for checking on a trail’s status. We took the funicular up the side of the mountain to the start of the hike, and were relieved to confirm that conditions underfoot, while not perfect, were fine. The weather was great; we lucked out with a cool, clear day. We took our time completing the trail loop, stopping at every vantage point to admire the Matterhorn. Maybe we naively went too early in the season, but in the end we were treated to a crowd-free, gorgeous day on the mountain.