Good, but not great
Written: Mar 23 '04
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Charming town, great vertical, multi-lingual, shopping, natural beauty of the Alps
Cons: Changing weather, hard packed conditions, smoking, heavy food, price, travel time, mountain layout, no help
The Bottom Line: Overall it is worth it to visit at least once.
Four impediments to us returning; travel time, cost, amount of smoking and the abundance of nice(r) resorts in the U.S.
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| marklyth's Full Review: Zermatt |
My wife and I visited Zermatt March '04 as our first week leg of our honeymoon. Zermatt was a nice quaint town and the people were generally down to earth, nice people. The skiing was good, but due to the lack of recent snow and the difficulty of getting to the mountain I would be hard pressed to rate the skiing as the best, good, but not the best. Overall it is worth it to visit at least once, when the dollar rebounds (ohhh, around 2030 or so) it would be nice to visit. Zermatt would also be a beautiful location during the summer, on our first day we just took the gondolas for sightseeing (a good decision as it was the only clear day of the week) and it is beautiful, nothing else like it. The bottom line is that for skiing, there are resorts in the U.S. that offer most of what Zermatt has for less money and hassle. The charm of Switzerland and the natural beauty is unique to Zermatt and probably worth visiting once. There are four impediments to us returning to Zermatt; travel time, cost, amount of smoking and the abundance of nice resorts in the U.S.
Skiing - B
There is no doubt about it, Zermatt has some of the longest runs around, with about 2200m of vertical they have much more than one kind find in the U.S. But there are problems;
1. Much of that vertical is at lower altitude and thus doesn't have good snow cover, the usable vertical is probably more like 3-4k feet, which is still pretty darn good. Also, there is only one run from Klein Matterhorn, the highest reachable point.
2. Much of the vaunted 5-7 mile runs are actually very flat or slightly uphill in areas and so make for an exhausting run. You actually come to appreciate shorter runs where you can 'rest' on the chairlift.
3. The trails are not clearly marked and the map is somewhat difficult to decipher. They have a mysterious 'yellow' designation that on the legend says 'downhill run', aren't all ski runs going to be downhill? It appears that yellow is equivalent to double-black diamonds in the U.S., unfortunately the hotel guide told us incorrectly that they were intermediate-difficult.
There are two major problems with skiing in Zermatt;
1. It takes a minimum of 1 hour from town to skiing; there are 3 locations to get up the mountain (gondola, cog train, steep cable train). Unless you only want to do short runs mid-mountain it usually requires at least one big gondola (80-100 people) to get to the top. On top of all this is that the three locations are spread throughout town so a bus, taxi or walk in ski boots is required.
2. There are too many gondolas, especially the large gondolas. In order to get to the top of either peak you have to take gondolas, unless you want to keep taking your skis on and off and crowding in with 80 not so nice smelling people all day you have to plan to avoid the gondolas. This limits the amount of terrain available, but for us was the only option as it is troublesome to use gondolas, perhaps we are too spoiled.
Many people make claim to Zermatt's off-piste skiing, we saw some bowls and some limited off-piste areas, but they were not really that impressive. We felt that Alta had better bowls and off-piste than what we found at Zermatt. Of course it is possible, err, likely, that we missed some of Zermatt's more impressive off-piste areas, but therein lies another problem with Zermatt, no guides. I have never been on such an undermanned resort area as Zermatt, it was just about impossible to find a guide, ski patrol or anybody else to help. I guess you can pay some fairly steep prices to get your own private ski guide, but at most other resorts we have gone to, that was not a necessity. Due to this you could not find out the condition of a particular run or get recommendations on where to ski. This led to our worst skiing mistake of the trip, we mistakenly went to Stockhorn and took the Triftji run. For those who do not know, Triftji actually turned out to be a world-class mogul run with a drop of over 1400m or about 4500ft, the length I imagine is close to 3 miles. This was marked as one of the yellow runs, which our hotel guide had sad was an advanced-intermediate run. Being that there was no appreciable snow in about 3-4 weeks when we got to Zermatt the run was hard packed and slightly icy, to compound things the ski ship mistakenly gave me some trick skis which where very hard to control. I am no great skier by any stretch, but I manage to hurl myself down single and double black diamond mogul runs occasionally and usually come out unscathed, but usually fall once. On this one run I fell about 5 times and was unable to turn my neck in one direction for about 4 days afterward. To make things even more confusing, looking at some various maps after the fact, the run is listed as black on some, yellow on others. A one mile double-black mogul run on fresh deep snow is exhausting, but fun, a 3 mile run on hard packed snow and ice with no break is hell on skis. Unfortunately there really is now warning that the entire run is made up of moguls and there is no non-mogul alternative to take, so one you have started, you are stuck.
The other days we had some good skiing with lots of fresh snow, but nothing that really knocked our socks off. The nicest part was that for most of the days it was the warmest skiing we had ever done. The downside is that with so much change in vertical and such high altitude the weather changes quickly, we learned why so many skiers had backpacks. You may start out in late morning at -3c, but by early afternoon it is -22c with wind and clouds. The best option is to pack for cold, even when it is warm.
The Town - A
Zermatt is the 2nd most unique place we have stayed (Tikehau, an atoll in French Polynesia was the most unique). The town itself is probably only 1km by 2km, basically it is set in a crevice between 4000m peaks and the town itself sits at about 1500m. Surrounded by such majestic mountains it is a wonderful sight. The town is made up of close to 200 smaller hotels (most less than 20 rooms), over 100 restaurants and quite a few dance clubs, bars, cafe's and of course, plenty of shops. The overall ambiance is a little small town, a little bit of glitz and a little bit of entertainment, an overall good mix. The main language in Zermatt is German (in Geneva it is mainly French), with most also speaking French, English and Italian. Zermatt is a gas-free car town, but there are electric buses and taxis, but the lack of smelly, noisy gas guzzling cars does make the ambiance a whole lot better, and there would be a lot of walking in ski boots and/or with luggage without the taxis/buses. Everybody pretty much keeps to themselves and in general everybody is nice and courteous (unlike the French resorts). The main downside for us was the level of smoking, it was everywhere, but again, not as bad as France.
Food & Drink - C
Zermatt has a good mix of various foods, lots of pizzarias, some French gastronomic, and some German. For a pair of mostly light eaters it was a little difficult at times to get what we wanted. German and French cooking tends to be heavy on creams, cheese and red meat, all of which we eat in only small quantities on occasion. Chicken was on the menu occasionally, but usually in a mix of some kind that was usually on the heavier side. That being said, I did have some of the best Lamb I have had at Zum See on the mountain. We were able to find food to meet our needs most of the time, but several times it took some time and patience. The other major problem with Europe also reared its head, at least 50% of the people smoked and in general they were chain smokers. Restaurants rarely had non-smoking areas and usually if they did, it wasn't really any less smoky than the smoking areas. Coming from Florida were there is no longer smoking indoors at restaurants, this was the single biggest problem on our trip and will prevent us from visiting Europe for a long time. If you like your food a little bit on the heavier side you will love dining in Zermatt. One quick note, the little creperie right near the church is great, we loved our little crepe snacks, definitely worth a shot.
Getting There
It is quite a trek from Florida to Zermatt, approximately 25hrs in all. Luckily for us we did it all first class, although AA first class is nice, it isn't all that. I definitely wouldn't pay for it (we used miles), business class is 90+% as good as first and only 1/3 the price. One recommendation I would have is to skip LHR if you can, I believe AA flies directly to Geneva from Dallas, even though the trip would have been longer for us (extra layover), it would have been the better choice.
We took the train from Geneva to Visp, then a car from Visp to Zermatt. Both the train ride and the car ride were very good, with good views all around. The car ride was a little scary (imagine NY taxi cab drivers on a 10' wide bending road with a 2000' drop to one side) but interesting. Arriving in Zermatt we were greeted by the Hotel Alex electric car and whisked away to the hotel.
Recommended:
Yes
Level of Experience Needed: Expert
Best Time to Visit: February
Best Suited For: Couples
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Epinions.com ID:
marklyth
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Reviews written: 32
Trusted by: 1 member
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