Winterwanderweg around Zermatt

Our visit to Zermatt in February 2012 coincided with a day of light snowfall and inevitably no views. However it gave us a chance to use both our Yaktrax grips and our new Microspikes.

It was snowing as we left the main street of Zermatt past the church...

....and out towards the beginning opf the path top Zmutt.

The track climbs steadily out of the village...

...and here we see Fran plodding steadily uphill.

The track climbs above the stream...

....through woods...

....and past several summer barns.

The snow is gettingdeeper but we continue onwards..

... through a deserted hamlet.

and finally see Zmutt on the skyline.

By now it was snowing quite hard and we were glad to get hot chocolate at the restaurant, even though it was so full we had to stay outside under a shelter.

For the descent we put on our Micro Spikes which made walking downhill really easy even on the slippy sections.

as we descended the snow eased off and we began to get some views..

.. down towards Zermatt. A wonderful walk which took us about 3 hours there and back from the station.