The Last Hurrah
For out last hurrah and final trip, we finally made it to Zermatt to see The Matterhorn. After a week of drastic weather forecast predictions and rapid changes, we all had our eyes glued to the sky as we glided along our 4-hour train ride, nervous about the shifting clouds of various darknesses and the sun that peaked out. Visibility of The Matterhorn is highly dependent on weather; be it even slightly too cloudy, it is impossible to see the bright snowy peak in all its glory. For the past four days, the various websites and apps we consulted for weather predictions showed high probability of precipitation for this Saturday so that by the morning of our journey, we all refused to talk about the weather out of fear of jinxing the sunshine we saw. If anyone dared speak meteorologically, we made sure a piece of wood was close at hand to knock on.
We did not do much atop Gornergrat (the peak from which one can see The Matterhorn form the Swiss side) we did not do much but take numerous photos and have lunch, so there is not much to report on in terms of activities. The most spectacular element of our trip was simply just being there. The Matterhorn and surrounding Alps are majestic and magnificent, especially as we saw them through the sunshine as well as slowly consuming clouds. It is hard to conceptualize their grandeur as such a small person surrounded by vast snow and rocks and nothing else. As my friend and I stood on a cliff-like edge and peered down into a valley between Gornergrat and the adjacent peaks, I commented that I really couldn’t tell how small or large the small streams of bright turquoise water below were. Without any structures, people, or animals for perspective, for all I knew, those streams could be as wide as houses or simply a small creek. I could have sat for hours here engaging in these common small person-big world contemplations that mountains have the ability to provoke.
(And just a small note for those who have been keeping up with this blog from the start: This trip, our last trip of our semester abroad, was with the same group who did our first trip of the semester together to Montreux. Talk about closure and continuity!).