Today we finished the last pass between Gruben and St. Niklaus, where we encountered a little bit of ice and snow on the ground. Got an early morning start because today’s hike was slated to be 7 1/2 hours over one pass and down one very very long hill into St. Niklaus. Unfortunately because of the earlier day’s rain and snow there was much mist and fog coming up the slopes from the valley so we couldn’t see all the beautiful views and vistas until midway through our walk. The icy cold temps kept us moving right off the summit where we only paused long enough to take the above photograph, thanks to a fellow hiker.

It stayed foggy and beautiful views were invisible for much of the next couple hours off of the pass. We traversed in talus and boulders in the mist with extra concentration anyway, so probably views didn’t matter. Every once in a while a vague hamlet or farmhouse would appear that was never clear enough to take a good photograph.

Then rounding the shoulder or ridge when we were least expecting it, we could see, far down in the valley, some of the communities on the valley floor on the way up to Zermatt. High up across the valley we could see a humongous glacier forming, never quite clearly knowing what we were looking at. Once we got the map we realized we were looking at the glacier on Dom, the highest mtn within Swiss borders, with it’s majesty dominating the lower Zermatt valley.

Descending toward the St. Niklaus area we walked along a long wall that is known as the Blumenalpinweg, the Alpine Flower Walk. Being mid-September all the flowers were gone but the placards still showed the big variety of wildflowers that grow along that walk. Arriving in Jungen we still had an hour and a half more to descend and you could just start to make out the houses and railroad in the valley.

Zermatt is now only 11 miles up the valley from St. Nicolas.