The hike to the Hörnlihütte, at the foot of the Matterhorn

Everyone who visits Zermatt sees the Matterhorn. Far fewer walk up to the foot of it and sleep there, and that is the part I would send anyone to do, climber or not.

The walk starts with a cable car out of Zermatt. Near the top station there is a small lake with a white chapel on its shore, and from there the trail climbs with the Matterhorn in front of you the whole way. First the trees thin out, then they are gone. You start to feel the height, and the ground turns to rock and scree, a landscape closer to the moon than to the meadows below. It is not a difficult hike. It is one of the nicest I have done in Switzerland, and the destination never leaves your sight.

The Hörnlihütte sits at 3,260 m, right where the climbing route begins. I should say why I was there: I was climbing the Matterhorn the next morning. But the hut is not only for climbers, and the night is the thing. You eat a good dinner with the mountain outside. The beds go early, so I had booked mine well before. Around you are people who will be roped up and gone before first light; you can be the one who sleeps in and walks down.

Most visitors get the Matterhorn as a postcard from the village. Walk up and stay the night, and you get it as a wall of rock a few hundred metres away, with the valley far below and nobody else around when the light changes. I truly recommend it to anyone. That is the Zermatt I would come back for, with or without a rope.