Riffelberg to Riffelalp

Trail description

The walk starts at Riffelberg station on the Gornergrat railway and follows the marked Mark Twain Weg (no. 18) down open slopes, with the Matterhorn in view, to the Riffelalp stop lower down the same line. The trail retraces the route Mark Twain took in August 1878, which he turned in A Tramp Abroad into a mock seven-day expedition to the Riffelberg of 198 people, mules included. The Riffelalp hotel opened in 1884 and burned down in 1961; the tram its owners built in 1899 to link it with the railway is described by the Gornergrat railway as Europe's highest tramway. The walk is about 3.4 km one way, with some 365 m of descent, from 2578 m to 2213 m.

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