Swiss Orienteering: Day#3

Day #3 of the Swiss Orienteering Week was the "Icy Day". We took a gondola and a cable car (see future post on gondola etiquette shortly) to get to the finish area (at 3100m a.s.l.). We had early start times and when we got there it was rather chilly. Out came the toques and warm clothes. The area had a great view of the Matterhorn as the picture of Emma in the finish line shows above.
This was well above tree line and most of the area was covered in moraines, small glacial lakes and 100% rock. Solid open rock like in the background of the photo above, scree slopes as shown in the foreground of the photo above and crushed rock as shown in the bottom picture.
The finish area was adjacent to the restaurant and after the race you could take another cable car to the Kleine Matterhorn (right peak on the photo above - see Swiss Glaciers posting).

We didn't have any checkpoints on the glaciers but as the photo on the bottom shows we got pretty close. We did get to run through a few patches of snow and got our feet wet running through the glacial ponds and streams.

This was a family adventure we will never forget. If it wasn't for the orienteering we doubt we would have ever done what we did today. Simply AWESOME.