Zermatt

On the weekend I went with some friends to ski below the Matterhorn at Zermatt. This is a resort that is higher than Whistler and has as many runs. As for my personal comparison:

1) Yup, it's higher, the scenery is more dramatic, you have views of glaciers and crevasses and the peaks soar above you. Plus we had all weekend views of the Matterhorn. Whistler is a butt ugly mountain, no question.

2) There might have been as many runs as Whistler (when you combined the Swiss and Italian sides - an extra cost we didn't bother with), but it seemed more spread out. Because of the dangerous terrain, you had to stick to the runs, unlike Whistler where you had the run of the place. So my first impression of Zermatt is it consists of widely spread out lifts (and huge Grouse mountain sized gondolas) with limited runs coming down from each lift.

So, to have a good day of skiing, I prefer Whistler, but Zermatt is definitely prettier.

I took the train to Zermatt and met up with my friends. We spent the evening in the steam room and wandering around the town including a cheese fondue dinner. Yum, cheese, the *real* reason I moved to Switzerland. We had  great view of the Matterhorn from our hotel room.

The next day was a semi-late start and we headed up to ski on the train (another cool feature lacking on Whistler). Every turn the train took revealed an even better view of the Matterhorn.

The skiing was so-so, and pretty icy towards the bottom. It seems that Zermatt has more clear days than Whistler, but that lowers you chances to ski on fresh powder.

We had our photo taken in front of the Matterhorn and while we were stopped I took a group photo of about 15 Britons. They vacation at Zermatt every year. I took a photo, then told them to do something silly. So they tried all lost their balance and toppled into a large pile of skis and people! I kept takings photos of course.

We had a crappy, expensive lunch with million-dollar views and continued skiing. We went up to the highest point you could reach, 12,700 ft. At that height I wasn't feeling too good. I've been around that height before on Mount Baker (with considerably more effort) and didn't feel the effects at all, and I was coming up from living at sea level. Maybe it was the massive cheese/wine/poor sleep the previous evening.

At the top, the conditions for skiing were much better, but damn was it cold!! Really damn cold. We headed down the mountain (you can definitely ski later here compared to Whister) and by the time we got near the bottom it was well into dusk. That doesn't happen at Whistler (no night skiing at either Zermatt or Whistler). Then it was time to catch the train and a 3 hour trip back to Lausanne.