UTMInstead

With the race basically cancelled, I took advantage of the gorgeous weather Friday and ran the ~30 miles from Grächen to Zermatt. I ran into several other runners from the race out doing their own thing. I stayed high along the Tour Monte Rosa/Europaweg, and it was gorgeous. A bunch of the trail is blasted into cliffs or requires stairs, bridges, or ropes. The valley itself was incredible, and that's without even considering the Matterhorn, which is so amazing it's hard to believe it's real. 

Took the train and bus from Zermatt back up to Grächen and collapsed in bed after an excellent, exhausting day.

The race director had organized a 50K for Saturday starting at 4AM. I saw most of the high parts of it on my own on Friday, and the other parts were running along gravel paths along the valley floor, so I had no interest in the race. Instead I enjoyed a leisurely morning coffee and pastries, and then headed around the corner into the Saas Valley. The only road to the valley is still washed out (they even offered helicopter flights out for tourists stuck there) but the high trail was fine. 

On a narrow cliff section of trail, a shepherd was bringing his flock back so I had to get out of the way. Typical Swiss stuff. 

The only way back to Grächen was either to turn the run into an out and back, or go an unmaintained old trail over Seetalhorn Pass, so obviously I went for the pass. It was nice to actually have a trail to myself, as there was no one else in the entire col. The trails was still fairly easy to follow since the red and white painted blazes were still there, if old and possibly covered in one talus field. 

I reached the pass, and figured I'd climb the peak, since the pass was under the 3000m but the peak was over 3000m and right there on the ridge. The ridge was easy enough but the summit block was a little to sketchy for me, so I turned around. Unfortunately on my way back down my foot snagged so I fell pretty hard and scratched up my whole right quad, which also took the brunt of the impact. I had a hard time getting down from the pass to the ski lift on the Grächen side, as there was a lot of loose rock, but once I did I was greeted by 8 chamois with babies. From there I connected with the race course, which was on ski slope maintenance roads to an aid station where I got some antiseptic and bandages.

The fall could have been much worse since there was a lot of exposure, so I'm glad I came away limping with no head wounds and nothing broken. Another runner at the finish line had a head wound and puffy black eyes; whatever happened to him was worse.

I'm now headed to Lausanne for a night, and flying home from Geneva Monday morning. I am of course bummed the UTMR didn't happen, but I got to see a little of the Zermatt Valley--enough to know that it's absolutely beautiful and the trail is incredible, and I'll be back someday, either to run the race or fastpack the route myself (so I can see it all in the daylight).

Aside from the weather and landslides, which is out of the RD's control, I think the race is a good one for US runners interested in racing in Europe who don't speak French or Italian--runners come from all over the world, but the lingua franca of the race is English.