Zermatt-Mürren Switzerland March 9-20, 2008

My Olympia buddies and I decided to ski Europe for the first time this year and we chose Zermatt and Mürren for contrasting experiences. Zermatt is one of the Swiss high end ski resorts located on the Italian border in the shadow of the Matterhorn. It has a vertical gain of 7,220’ and dozens of lifts and trams. I went on to Mürren near Interlaken with my non-skier wife for the picturesque scenery the next week and to experience a more traditional Swiss mountain village setting.

Due perhaps to some good karma, the Swiss Alps delivered in a big way for us. This season started in the Alps with a bang and then a dry spell held on from Christmas until the week of March 9th when we arrived in Zermatt. Over the next two weeks enough snow fell every other day to freshen up the conditions, and a big storm was on its way when we left Switzerland March 20th.

Zermatt is an amazing but expensive place with a resident population of 2000 Swiss-Germans. We found lodging and lift ticket costs competitive with large US ski resorts. Because dining out was expensive due to the low dollar, we chose to cook dinner in our apartment every night via buying food at the Coop or Migros which are the two Swiss grocery store chains. Even then food was expensive, but of very high quality. Swiss beer was surprisingly disappointing. Zermatt has 35 bars and you had better like inhaling cigarette smoke inside them and the restaurants. The on-mountain restaurants are expensive, but where else can you have a bowl of asparagus soup and a beer on an outside patio and look at the mighty Matterhorn?

Perhaps due to the cost at Zermatt, the average skier age was older than you see in western US resorts. Most surprising was the high number of women skiers. The vast majority of skiers were intermediates. You have to be aggressive in lifts and tram lines and throwing an elbow to get on a bus or gondola ahead of others seems to be standard procedure. I brought my own skis along and the tops didn’t get scratched as I had feared might happen. Maybe 1-2% of the skiers go off-piste, and our last day we skied untracked snow until 4:30 pm. Hardly any snowboarders at this resort or at Mürren. At both resorts people seem to start skiing later and end later in the day. The lifts turned until 5:00 pm. I skied 8 days and never saw a ski patroller with an identifiable uniform on, ever. The resort staff certainly did avalanche control as we heard them bombing in the mornings, so someone must monitor the mountain.

Zermatt has some good exposures to ski when they get adequate snow which seems to be an issue. The top reaches 12,792 feet. You have to hit this resort at maximum snow pack or a good skier will be bored. We did many laps on the Gant 150-person tram with its northern exposures that have a 3600 vertical at the north end of the Gornergrat portion of the resort. We didn’t hit the Stockhorn area with its advanced skiing because of riding a T-bar is not my idea of fun, and we could see the icy bumps from over two miles away. The south area called Schwarzee Paradise is the other portion with challenging terrain, but you need a guide due to the glaciers. We observed a skier-induced slide and it’s easy to get cliffed out. We wanted to ski over to the Cervinia, Italy portion for the novelty, but high winds (which are typical) prevented that until the last day there and the terrain is rated red (intermediate) so we didn’t pursue this option. I have skied nearly all the western US ski resorts (Jackson Hole, Whistler, Tahoe, Taos, Colorado) and feel that the whole package at Zermatt was the best I’ve experienced. That being said, I probably won’t be back unless I win the lottery. The town is very international and has lots of energy, there is a nice mix of historic buildings (dating to the 1400s) and new construction, and the level of service was excellent. Flexnet ski rentals seem to be the best, to get a fat ski you have to ask for “free ride skis” or they won’t know what you are talking about. Our hosts the Karin and Brigette Perren twins at the Jolimont Apartments were a wonderful to deal with. The town is “car-free” with scores of electrical carts flying around. You quickly learned to keep an ear out for these vehicles, the taxi drivers were like circling sharks--they drive like hell and could teach a New York City cab driver lessons.

Mürren is on the east side of the Lauderbrunen Valley in the Bernard Oberland Canton. You access it from the incredibly touristy city of Interlaken, and take a 150-person tram up from the valley and then transfer to a private run funicular train that delivers you to the village. The village looks at the Unesco-listed Jungfrau and Eiger peaks that provide nearly 2.5 miles of vertical gain that is visually spectacular. The valley has 72 waterfalls. The Mürren ski resort is one of three resorts (Wegen and Grimmelwald) that is rated as the most difficult, but unfortunately it has an east-west orientation. There was precious little north-facing aspects which are critical in spring, so much of the snow was either sun or wind affected. My wife and I stayed at the Sportchalet and had a balcony view of the Eiger and Jungfrau for much less money that Zermatt. The resort seems to attract more of a family crowd. The Schilthorn tram tops out at 9500 feet, and my last day I skied knee-deep light powder there until a freezing fog moved in that made visibility so poor that nearly all the skiers bailed and took the tram down the mountain base. The skiing is all above treeline so the orange stakes placed along the pistes every 50 meters weren’t sufficient. I met a Canadian man and his two teenage sons from Fernie who were totally freaked out at the visibility and headed down the hill, so the scary visibility factor wasn’t just me…I met many good b/c British skiers who seem to come to this area. The restaurants weren’t that great and were very smoky. Nightlife consists of going to motel bars and we chose to sit on our balcony and look at the every changing view of the Eiger and Jungfrau that was so beautiful my wife who isn’t a skier or big mountain fan just couldn’t stop raving about the scenery.

Our party was very impressed by the Swiss train system and we didn’t drive a car for two weeks. If you go get a Swiss Flex pass to pay for your major travel days, and you get 50% discounts on all of the trams or private trains on the days you stay in one location if you want to see the historic and visual beauty. The best way to get there from Seattle is on a LONG Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) to Copenhagen, then transfer to Zurich—you fly over northern Canada, Greenland, and Norway. The SAS staff were great, and the customs and airport at both Copenhagen and Zurich were far superior to the service we found at Sea-Tac.

The Swiss are amazing people--nearly all of the Swiss we met could speak at least three languages and often took initiative to help us out with train or language questions without us having to ask. It was a trip of lifetime for me.

Welcome back and thanks for the great TR with pictures to boot!  I've been contemplating a ski trip to Europe for some time and really appreciated all the practical details about travel/food/lodging.  The terrain details were helpful also.  Glad to hear the weather cooperated for you.

Hopefully next year the us dollar will be a little stronger internationally so I can pull the trigger on my own trip.

Not a problem Joeb... PM me if you go next year for further insights (like bringing a face washcloth because they aren't provided; and dealing with your luggage transfers) into traveling in Switzerland.  If I went again to the Alps I'd hit Verbier or Chamonix for the more challenging skiing but I just can't speak French and my high school German lessons paid off all these years later.  Zermatt was epic though, no regrets at all. 

Tap into the Ski Club of Great Britain website for conditions and guides in English to do your homework, the Swiss resorts don't even have a snow condition phone line.  Everything about open lifts is either on the web or a local TV channel and they barely provide info on snow conditions, weather, or new snow totals.  You typically have to pay 5 CHF for 30 minutes of internet acccess to get this info.  Finally, Rick Steves' travel center in Edmonds and his guide books were golden.  Aaron who works there had lived and skied in Zermatt/Murren and had info on what to expect, and the travel consultation we paid for was well worth it in figuring out the complex Swiss train ticket options. 

Hi Lex- we were in Zermatt about the same time, although only for 2 days (I was in Switzerland to lecture at the U. of Basel, and that was all the time away I could get).  Your report is highly accurate. Several things that surprised me: nearly everyone skied on-piste (I guess that isn't surprising considering that anything off of the marked trails is completely unmarked, on the ground or on the maps); those electric taxi drivers!; and the difficult in finding fat skis (on our first day we ended up renting Volkl AC3's which were pitched to us as the fattest thing they had and "perfect for off-piste"- we found another shop that had some fatter and softer skis the next day).

We hired a guide the 2nd day (5 total in the group, put together by the Alpine Center), which was expensive but well worth it. We skied 30-40 degree couloirs all day, first tracks every run, mostly in the Gornergrat area. The visibility was terrible and there were no views, but it had snowed a foot overnight, and unlike the bullet-proof ice on the pistes the day before, every run was at least boot top and sometimes bottomless powder. We never would have found the places our guide took us on our own. We had a great time!

Wow, super informative report. Thanks!