Hohtälli, Rote Nase und Bergstation Stockhorn

In Zermatt, we took the Gornergatbahn, all the way to the Bergstation Gornergrat at 3089m. We were very lucky with the weather: almost no clouds. The view was truly breathtaking. The Gornergratbahn is not so cheap, but I would say it's worth the money. After enjoying the 360° view for a while, my parents and my sister decided to go back to Winkelmatten via Rotenboden, Riffelberg and Riffelalp. At Riffelberg you can choose between different trails. I would definitely recommend the Mark Twain trail. (I did it last year). 

Meanwhile, my uncle and I wanted to see how far we could get in the direction of the Stockhorn. (Actually, I just wanted to do that, but my uncle had to come with me because otherwise my parents would worry to much). There was a small but rather steep snowfield we had to cross, but after that we could just follow the path. It is about 1 hour from Gornergrat to Höhtälli. At that point, there are some direction signs, one of them said 'Stockhorn, alpine trail, 1hr 10min'. We continued in this direction. There was a visible path, it became a bit more exposed though. I thought it was fun, my uncle didn't really agree  :) He decided to wait about 50 meters under Bergstation Stockhorn. It took me another 10 minutes of scrambling to get to the Bergstation. To my surprise, the sign said 'Stockhorn 3532m', which I think is wrong. I checked this on map.geo.admin.ch and it should be 3405m. I hadn't reached the actual Stockhorn, but only the 'Bergstation'. 

We descended to Höhtälli and there, since it was already 2 PM, we chose to go further down using the wide paths in the skiing area, to win some time. Back at Gornergratsee we wanted to go to Riffelberg and Riffelalp (like my parents and my sister). Unfortunately, we must have taken a wrong turn somewhere and our path was going more and more to the right. We reached skistation Breitboden and then we saw direction signs to Grünsee and Sunnegga . We didn't want to go that way... After a while we were back on a dirt road and we reached Riffelalp. We then descended to Winkelmatten, and arrived there at 5:59 PM.