A WALK IN THE HILLS

It was what we call "a perfect Swiss day." The sun was out, even though it was cool, and a soft breeze blew across the town. We made the 1 km+ walk across town to the Furi lift (up toward the Matterhorn, another 1 km in a gondola lift, to save time), then started a leisurely walk up toward the farming village with the delightful name of Zmutt. As we walked, we were trying to remember (1- he) the name of a local mountain brook with a stunning waterfall (Findelbach), (2 - she) the name of the sugar/almond paste confection used to shape fruits, vegetables, and little animals in European countries (marzipan). Turns out, it's hard to climb uphill and remember lost nouns at the same time -- the blood supply needed by the brain must be shunted off to the muscles!

At Zmutt, we headed for the sun deck at Jaegerstube, one of our favorite mountain restaurants, and order the house kaeseschnitte ("baked cheese sandwich") -- a dish that contains crispy country bread, grated cheese and onions, fried eggs, sliced ham, tomatoe, and garnished with dill pickle and cocktail onions. After a short rest in the sun to digest, we climbed away from the restaurant, past a penned herd of cattle, calves, and a single bull, with bells tolling and one Mom bellowing to be milked. The meadow path climbed up another 500 feet or so, and passed through magical carpets of wildflowers of all shapes and colors -- gentians and bellflowers, white Alpine dasies and purple asters, yellow saxifrages, pink dianthus, thrift, and rock mosses. I couldn't resist settling into the grass.

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Our high meadow walk offered an excellent view down to the (nearly empty) silting pond for the Grand Dixence in the background. The GD is an amazing Swiss engineering project which provides several hundred megawatts of hydroelectric power for Western Switzerland. (According to Wikipedia, the Valais canton contains 56% of Switzerland's  glaciers and stores the largest amount of water in Europe. Power is extracted at several stations as the water falls down thousands of feet to the Rhone River.)  In the background at the end of the valley, is the Arbenhang -- a large hanging glacier that is melting and retreating rapidly.

Vacations are best in large spaces, with a lot of sky.

The walk was a total of about 5 miles -- including the walk through the "city" of Zermatt and back to the hotel -- with just over a thousand feet up and down. That's enough that we'll feel it in the thighs tomorrow.