My First Ski Trip To Europe
I’ve been skiing since high school and have skied at many big mountain ski resorts all over North America including those in Alberta, BC, Colorado, Utah, Montana, Vermont, Quebec and New York (Lake Placid) but have never skied in Europe. I finally decided to go to Europe this winter choosing Zermatt in Switzerland since it’s usually regarded as one of the top global ski destinations to go to (and is covered by my IKON pass). So after a tough overnight flight to Switzerland sitting in the middle seat and getting maybe only 1.5 hours sleep, I landed in Zurich. I booked my trains to Zermatt in advance since the tickets go up in price over time. Initially I was naturally a bit anxious to get on the right trains especially since I was in a foreign country by myself but my travel research helped me big time and once I knew I was on the right train rolling towards Zermatt, I felt much better. The nice views of the Swiss countryside certainly helped too!
When I arrived in Zermatt, it was a short walk to my hotel as the entire village is very walkable. One interesting thing about Zermatt is that they do not allow any gas powered vehicles so all vehicles here are electric. The compact rectangular boxes on wheels kind of reminded me of some of the Star Wars robots for some reason. I did shoot some video in the town but I’ll combine it with footage with the other cities I visited on this Europe trip in the next post. For now I want to get right into the main reason why I came here which was skiing.
One huge difference I noticed between Zermatt and North American ski resorts I’ve been to is that the skiable terrain at Zermatt is above the tree line where in North America, it’s usually a mix of slopes cut through areas with lots of trees and areas higher up above the tree line. Here in Zermatt, everything is above the tree line resulting in wide open areas which make the skiable terrain look huge. It also resulted in magnificent views of the Swiss Alps from pretty well anywhere on the mountain. I was lucky enough to have three blue bird clear sunny ski days resulting in unobstructed views of the iconic Matterhorn.
Although general tourists (non-skiers) can take the same main lift modes such as the funicular, train and trams up to the mountain top observation decks, skiers and snowboarders can access much more terrain where general tourists cannot. This enabled me to take video at areas general tourists would never see but hopefully through my video footage, you will get to see these.
So I started day 1 at the Sunnegga Rothorn area which is accessed by a very interesting funicular from right in the town of Zermatt and then chairlifts, gondolas and trams further up the mountain. For day 2, I went to the adjacent area called Gornergrat which believe it or not, is accessed by taking a train to go up which is a very different way to go up a mountain. This second area gave me closer views of the Matterhorn.
For my last day on the slopes, I went to the highest peak area called Matterhorn Glacier Paradise which is 3883 metres or 12740 feet above sea level. There is an observation deck at the top which gave a very impressive 360 degrees view.
It was also at this Matterhorn Glacier Paradise area that I got the closest views of the Matterhorn and felt the best snow (from a skiing point of view) out of the three main skiable areas of Zermatt. It’s also this third area that actually merges into the Italian side of the Alps called Cervina with its separate ski resort there (although I didn’t want to pay extra to ski over to Italy).
While skiing, I found myself stopping quite frequently to shoot video, take photos or just to admire the magnificent views. Here’s a video of the best footage I shot while on the mountain.
European Ski Culture Is Different
During my ski time at Zermatt, I did notice that the European ski culture is different from that in North America. Instead of going nuts to get in as many ski runs as possible, Europeans seem to have a more casual, relaxed way for their ski days. There are quite a few mid mountain restaurant bars and by 11 am, I saw many European skiers already drinking at these establishments on the mountain. They seem to ski from one mountain bar to another, ie., another beer and pastry at each stop.
Another difference with European ski culture I noticed is the tight ski pants that many of the women wear which of course I just loved! However at times I felt that I had to be very careful with my own skiing when I was following a European lady on the slopes. Getting too fixated on her Euro bum made me miss some turn offs I had planned to take and I didn’t want to end up crashing either due to a lack of focus on my skiing (much like a driver having a fender bender because he was looking at a female on the sidewalk instead of the road).
Another attraction I found at mid mountain was an igloo bar with a two room hotel. I stopped right at their opening time at 10:30 am to shoot another video.
My Overall Assessment Of Zermatt
I estimated that there were 50% skiers/snowboarders and 50% general (non-snow sports) tourists in Zermatt. In both the ski lifts and on the streets I heard many languages from around the world so this is not just a destination for skiers. As a ski destination, I would say that the mountain scenic views are some of the best I’ve ever seen. As for the quality of the skiing, I think I came a bit too late in the ski season as the soft powder snow off piste I was hoping for was already gone leaving hard pack ice.
Zermatt and Switzerland in general is very expensive though. The hotel I stayed in was barely a two star with paper thin walls and it was still $150 US per night. It was so bad that at times I even heard the guy in the next room snoring. The trains were also expensive and in order to cut down on costs for meals, I along with many other tourists bought our meals at the local grocery stores in the village. I looked at the menu of the one Chinese restaurant they had in town and they were charging about $50 Cad for each dish of imitation, fake westernized Chinese chop suey food — no thanks!
One thing I hated about Zermatt as a ski resort was that it did not have a main lodge chalet with lockers and change rooms like at many North American ski resorts. This resulted in skiers having to walk all over town with their bulky ski boots on to get to the lifts or electric bus stops.
I would still recommend Zermatt as a ski destination though for a shorter stay like the three ski days I had just for the incredible views of the Matterhorn and Swiss Alps. I don’t think it’s worth it to spend an entire week there whether you are a skier or just general tourist especially at such a high cost. That’s why I combined this ski trip with travel to visit a scuba diving friend in Germany and made short visits to more cities which I’ll show in the next post.
The Matterhorn Swiss Alps video used a remake by my community music project of the classic song Rock’n Me by Steve Miller Band as the music background. In case you would like to see the music video for this tune, you can see it at the Unity Power Force Rock’n Me webpage.
The igloo video used an acoustic guitar instrumental called Hope which I composed and played. The official music video is at the Unity Power Force Hope webpage.
