Tour de Matterhorn

.Stage 3: Zinal – Pas de Forcletta – Gruben-Meiden

7/16 My brother Dwight and his son Byron and left our hotel in Zinal at 6:30a and walked a few feet down the main road before turning left and up a side street past the church. We continued up the hillside out of town to the apartment complex signed Formula 1, then crossed the road and walked up a narrow road/driveway with a signpost to Hotel Weisshorn. Above the buildings a way marked track headed to the right and rose among stands of larch and soon crossed an avalanche defense system. Once across this the path rose steeply through the forest in a series of steep switch backs which soon rose up out of the valley. After about 45 minutes from the hotel the route eased a bit and began a gentle but consistent traverse. About a half an hour further on we came out of the trees and onto a beautiful open shelf of hillside (2172m – 7125ft). The trail continued its gentle but persistent ascent north along the hillside above the Zinal valley and after about two hours we arrived at Barneuza Alpage farm amid the high pastureland (2210m – 7250ft).

The route continued on ahead and in another half an hour we reached Alpe Nava (2339m – 7674ft). Here the trail split, with the left hand path leading on to the Hotel Weisshorn, another hour and twenty minutes further north. The path we wanted, to Pas de Forcletta, followed a steep trail beside a stream into an upper basin before veering left and up to another farm, Tshalet (2522m – 8275ft). The route then followed a trail, up rocky slopes in long switch backs across heather and scree to reach the Pas de Forcletta (2874m – 9427ft) (9:55a). From the pass the trail slanted down to the left over rolling pastures and came to the farm buildings of Chalte Berg (2487m – 8160ft) (11:20a). We followed the track between the alp buildings and then followed a trail which paralleled the road, later dropping below it to the alp huts at Masstafel (2234m – 7330ft). From here the way descended down through the forest finally coming to the valley bed about a mile up valley from Gruben-Meiden (1823m – 5980ft) (12:45p). The weather had turned hot by the time we arrived at Gruben Meiden and so double the amount of cold beer was ordered to quench the thrust of the weary travelers.