ZERMATT, SWITZERLAND
Zermatt was weird.
Don’t get me wrong - I liked it, for the most part. But man, it was a different slice of life.
Descending into Zermatt via cable car, August 2025.
We entered Swiss territory via cable-car after a long hike, with one more short one ahead of us. The lift dropped off in the hills just above town and we made our way down the rest of the mountain, peeling layers off in the afternoon sun. Real life Lincoln-Log cabins, new and ancient, dotted the hills. Each had it’s own splash of color, whether it be flower boxes, shudder paint, umbrellas or all-three. There was a very unique aesthetic to the entire place.
I ran into a guy wearing a Buffalo Bills hat on the way down, and assuming he was American asked if he was all the way out here from Buffalo.
No, he told me, he’s DANISH and only has a Bills hat because he went to one of those London games a few years back. No kidding.
Another thing these cabins and cabin-adjacent buildings had in common were these massive stone roofs. And when I say massive I mean both the stones and the roofs. It was an incredible feat of math and science that these stones didn’t cave the structures in below them. Some of the older ones were hundreds of years old, with 5-6 foot wide shingles made of mountain rock. Even the newer ones, like the restaurant pictured above had them. Definitely a tribute to sticking with what works.
This was hour twelve of the twelve hour hike. I barely remember taking these. I was deliriously tired and hangry.
Man were they putting up some real estate in Zermatt. You could live a very nice life as a crane operator if you speak German (I do not).
So we saw some full sized vehicles up in the hills, but once we got to town I noticed the lack there of - it was all electric, and everything was mini. Mini-taxi’s mini-buses, scooters, bikes, skateboards. No gas, and I was taller than any of it. It was like Richard Scary or something, just these strange little vehicles buzzing and bopping by. I honestly expected to see someone driving an apple on wheels.
A few shots of the architecture and infrastructure of the town, both of which were top notch. Also pictured: it’s proximity to the mighty Matterhorn.
I’ve seen cemeteries in town before, the southeast side of Cedar Rapids has one not far from downtown for one obvious example, but I’ve never seen one in the CENTER of town, the way it was here. The dead, bless their souls, had the best real estate in Zermatt, and it was taken care of that way. There were immaculate flower displays in front of each headstone, it was pristinely clean, and it was again, at the very center of town. A feature, not a bug. It says a lot about a place as to how they treat their lost loved ones, and I’ve never seen it done they way the Swiss do.
This one was among the finalists to make the calendar but I ended up doing a series of pink flowers in the mountains.
A lone man walks in the rain through downtown Zermatt as a storm rolls in. One of my favorite images from this odd and awe-inspiring place.
