Riffelberg to Gornergrat

Zermatt, Switzerland

On October 9, 2024, Kim and I took the Gornergrat Bahn to the Riffelberg station (8471’), hiked from there to the Gornergrat station (10132’), and took the train back to Zermatt. The hike from Riffelberg to Riffelsee was beautiful with constant and amazing views of the Matterhorn and other “lesser” mountains. There were few people on this portion of the trail, though the area around Riffelsee was busy with people walking down from the Rotenboden station. From Riffelsee we decided to take a side trail rather then walk with all of the people on the trail from Rotenboden up to Gornergrat. This was a great decision as we did not see any people after Rotenboden until we got to Gornergrat and the scenery was breathtaking. Most of this trail was fairly flat along a steep mountainside above a valley carved out by a still existing glacier. The views of the glacier were especially spectacular as we started high enough to get the perspective of the entire glacier but ended up low enough to feel the awesomeness of it. Eventually we had to climb straight up (with the help of switchbacks) the mountainside to catch the ridge trail that led back to Gornergrat. This part of the trail was challenging to both our lungs and legs, but eventually led us into fresh snow and offered views of several mountain goats. The ridge trail at the top was snow covered with amazing views in all directions. Overall, this was a highlight hike from our time in Switzerland.

Walk-Specific Map

Hint: Change map layer to “Imagery” using the object in the upper-right corner of the map below.

Elevation Profile

Images

GPX Download

A sanitized GPX file of our hike is here.

Summary Information

NUM trackID Primary Description Distance CumDist DeltaElev
1 GORNERGRAT1 Riffelsee Trail Riffelberg Train Station to small pond 0.38 0.38 254
2 GORNERGRAT2 Riffelsee Trail small pond to Riffelsee Lake 0.90 1.28 339
3 GORNERGRAT3 Ridge Trail Riffelsee Lake to Alpine Garden Trail (from Rotobaden) 0.17 1.45 66
4 GORNERGRAT4 Ridge Trail Alpine Garden Trail (from Rotobaden) to Ridge Climb Crosscut Trail 1.23 2.68 -262
5 GORNERGRAT5 Ridge Climb Crosscut Trail Ridge Trail to Gornergrat Hohtalli Trail 0.76 3.44 1284
6 GORNERGRAT6 Gornergrat Hohtalli Trail Ridge Climb Crosscut Trail to Gornergrat Train Station 0.28 3.72 106