At 3,089 metres, the Matterhorn finally meets its equals.
The Gornergrat railway opened in 1898 and remains the highest open-air cog railway in Europe. It climbs from Zermatt to the ridge at 3,089 metres in thirty-three minutes, with the Matterhorn in view almost the entire way up. At the summit, the landscape turns from scenery into geography: twenty-nine peaks above four thousand metres, the Dufourspitze at 4,634 metres (Switzerland's highest), and below them the slow curve of the Gorner glacier, the third longest in the Alps.
Most visitors come for an hour and return. The slower version stays longer, waiting on the viewing platform until the coach groups clear, then walking back down through Rotenboden, where the Matterhorn doubles in the still water of the Riffelsee. The path drops through an alpine garden the train skips past. The mountain sets the pace anyway.