Thirty-eight four-thousanders rise into view and none of them belong to just one country.
Flower trail
Snow gentians open for two months a year and close for the rest of it.
Thirty information boards mark this 4.3-kilometre descent from Blauherd to Sunnegga, each one identifying a wild plant growing within reach of the path. The route drops through alpine meadow, dwarf shrub heath and bare gravel slopes, three habitats within a single walk, and the flowers along each stretch differ accordingly.
The snow gentian is one of seventeen gentian species recorded around Zermatt. It flowers in July and August, completes its life cycle within a single year, and then is gone, a rare pattern this high in the Alps. The trail passes through Tufteren, a small hamlet of traditional timber Gädi storehouses, roughly halfway down. Mostly downhill and rocky underfoot, the walk takes about ninety minutes and rewards a slow pace: crouching low reveals plants a quick walker would miss entirely.
