Zermatt - Sunnegga Winter hike or summer hike?

http://www.zermatt.ch/winterwandern/Winterwanderwege/Winkelmatten-Sunnegga

A winter hike turned into early summer hike this Christmas. I have been hearing a lot about lack of snow this winter, and it has been really sunny. But I did not realize the extent to which this has affected real life till I decided to go on a winter hike in Zermatt which turned into an early summer hike with only patchy snow.

In an attempt to find some real guaranteed snow, I decided to go all the way to Zermatt for a winter hike. Zermatt stands at 1400m and the mountains around at 3000m+, which means the town is typically snow covered by Christmas or at least you can find snow in mountains. This year the story was very different. There was very little difference between what we saw back at peak of summer, and now in middle of winter.

The hike starts from Zermatt church. There are couple of ways to get to Sunnegga. We took the path through Winkelmatten which seemed shorter and simpler. There was no sign of snow in the town or on the trail. Though once the trail leaves the town there were many icy patches on trail. These were covered by grass, stones and fallen larch leaves which were providing perfect traction. The trail was clearly very well maintained.

Matterhorn was constantly in the view. As we got higher, it became clearer, along with other mountains around it. After a while the trail does become covered in snow, which is still easy to hike on. Once at Findlen the ski lifts are visible. The small ski village has many restaurants. Here it was clear that a skiing slope has been created out of no snow. There was a road of snow surrounded by clear ground. View of Matterhorn is just amazing from here. The Sunnegga point is only 30 - 40min away from here. We stopped on the way at a perfect spot just short of Sunnegga to have lunch in clear view of Matterhorn.

At Sunnegga there is a small area where people were learning to ski. After hanging out there for a while, we returned back. I was a bit apprehensive about the initial icy patches on the trail, but there was no need to worry. People who made the trail knew what they were doing. Great end to a perfectly sunny winter day.

So this does happen ...

Yesterday I was on tram in Zurich and a guy comes and sits next to me. He looks at me again and asks - do you speak English. I say yes. Then he fetches something from his bag. I thought maybe he wants me to read something, and I am thinking I cannot translate it in German! He shows me a 2016 calendar - "for you" and I notice that he has bag full of those in many languages. I say, thank you - is it from your company? He said - no its for Christ - or something like that. I am flipping through it, its nice calendar and I don't mind what's written on it. I still say thank you.

Then he starts saying something about - our God died for humanity .... one true God. Something that I am not really interested in following, I have other things to think about. So I try to return the calendar and tell him - I am sorry I cannot take it, I am Hindu. Then I add I am not Christian, just to make sure he gets the message. He insists keep the calendar and then adds something like - you know ours is true religion because our God dies for sins or something like that. First I am surprised, then I am thinking should I keep the calendar? Then I read a line from calendar which could very well have been a line from Geeta about loving human beings. So I show him the line and say - all religions say the same, you have your belief and I have mine. He is still muttering something about someone died for something. Its my stop, so I getup, decide to keep the calendar, say thanks again and leave.

This is the first time ever that I have had such encounter. I often see people near hauptbahnof distributing calendars, papers about God. They don't stop you because they can see you are not least interested. Here I was a captive audience, and of course I accepted the calendar in first place, so can't blame him. I found it quite amusing in the end.