UKC

We're planning a trip on the Cham-Zermatt "Walker's Haute Route" end of August. Not too sure what the best route for the final St.Niklaus-Zermatt stretch is though. We have two days left for that bit and my original assumption was we'd spend them doing the Europaweg over 2 days with a stop at the Europahutte, but since 2011 it seems the path may have been significantly diverted due to rockfalls (the kind of diversions that lead to massive descents and reascents maybe, but it's hard to find any concrete information).

Any opinions on whether it's still a sensible option, or any up-to-date information on the state of the path would be appreciated.

I'd really like to somehow arrive in Zermatt from a high path rather than just up the valley via Randa and Tasch if possible. Are there ways to gain the Europaweg which miss the troublesome bits without feeling like just going up only to come down again?

Thanks for any info
Tim

Definitive info on the current path routing seems to be at:
http://www.zermatt.ch/en/page.cfm/europabruecke_geschlossen
so to do both halves of the way would seem to need a major descent and reascent to/from Randa. Most unsatisfactory.

The reasonably up to date threads at
http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/ShowTopic-g188045-i336-k6671116-Europaweg_stat...
and
http://www.lonelyplanet.com/thorntree/thread.jspa?threadID=2334244
also have some useful info.

Leaning towards skipping the northern part and just going up to the Kinhutte from Randa and doing the southern part to Zermatt.

In reply to timday:

If you want to see the reason for the diversion take a look at http://tinyurl.com/parg7x3

Odd that the route should ever have been considered safe.

In reply to streapadair:

Glad we decided not to take the bikes along it.

Kinhutte's site has a link to an article containing an image of the bridge post rockfall damage: http://www.1815.ch/images/5088_1.jpg

Just talked to someone in Zinal tourist info office earlier and they said the europahut custodians are quite distressed that everyone still seems to think the Europaweg is effectively closed (although how open anyone would consider it to be these days seems to rather depend on their tolerance for enormous descents/reascents).

Gah. Just called the Kinhutte and they told us the section of Europaweg between them and Tasch is currently closed by rockfall so the Kinhutte isn't much use for doing any of the Europaweg either! Probably just going to head into Zermatt a night earlier than intended instead.

Bit more info on the latest closure at

http://www.1815.ch/wallis/aktuell/europaweg-auf-unbestimmte-zeit-gesperrt-1...

or more usefully

http://translate.google.co.uk/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&prev=_t&h...

In the end we just walked up the valley in a (easy) day, and had an extra night in Zermatt (which worked out well as the next day the weather was perfect and we did the Hohbalmen/Edelweiss trail with fantastic views).