Having grown up in Wyoming and Idaho and lived in Utah, Colorado and northern Arizona, ski towns and high alpine mountains feel like home. And that’s what I liked about the Alps. The terrain dominates, not old buildings and foreign languages (although there was still plenty of that). This is high, alpine country, although the mountains seemed steeper and sharper than those in the states.
Zermatt (world class resort town) looked a lot like other world class skiing resort towns during the off season - shops, ski stores and condos in a beautiful setting. Cars are not allowed, but there are these small vehicles to cart people and things around.
Anxious to do some hiking other than along sidewalks in old cities, we passed on the gondola ride up to the view points, and marched on through the town and kept going up a trail that some others who looked like they knew what they were doing were hiking on. Turns out it was the trail up to the base of the iconic Matterhorn, about a 4 hour hike. We didn’t go that far but only a couple of hours up to an area with some chalets and restaurants (closed for the season) to feed hikers like us (when open). The trail wound through beautiful alpine country, with small, rustic chalets (these are actually called mazots) along the way. Some may be summer homes, although somewhat “down market” from those in Zermatt. I think the traditional practice is for herders to use the mazots while grazing their goats and sheep in these high mountain meadows during the summer and then bring the livestock down to lower elevations for the winter. Some still had sheep in the corrals/barns.
The roofs are made of stone (an ample supply here)
Note the carefully fenced off garden plot.
