Three Generations at the Matterhorn

Nine of us, ages one to late sixties. The Matterhorn out every window, a four-star hotel that punched above its rating, and the week that turned us into European-ski people.

[ZERMATT, SWITZERLAND]. I'm about two years late writing this up, but I keep coming back to it, because our week in Zermatt over New Year's 2023/2024 was our first European ski trip as a family and it set a bar we've been chasing ever since. We've skied plenty since, in the Dolomites, the French Alps, and our home turf in Colorado and Utah, but Zermatt is the one that rewired how we think about a ski trip.

We were nine people across three generations. A one-year-old at the bottom, grandparents in their late sixties at the top, a mix of committed skiers and happy non-skiers in between. If you've ever tried to plan a trip for a group like that, you know the math is brutal: everyone needs something different, and the thing that delights the toddlers is rarely the thing that satisfies the grandparents. Zermatt, somehow, kept all of us happy. Here's how the week came together, and what I'd tell you to copy.

We looked hard at Courchevel, St. Moritz and Verbier before settling on Zermatt. Two things tipped it:

Altitude. The resort climbs to 12,792 feet, which gave us a far better shot at decent snow in late December and early January than the lower resorts, where an early-season trip can be a gamble. The IKON pass. Five days of skiing with zero blackout dates over New Year's week, which you simply cannot do at most US resorts on a base pass. Kids under nine also ski free in Zermatt, which adds up quickly with a group our size.

“Booking a European ski hotel over the holidays is a different sport from booking Vail, and I mean that literally.”

We wanted seven nights, not ten, and got lucky when La Ginabelle agreed to the shorter stay. Layer the festive-week logistics on top of all that and the planning felt like a part-time job.

The thing nobody quite prepares you for is that cars aren't allowed in the village at all. I'd read it. I didn't understand it until we arrived. Permitted electric vehicles can drop you off, and most hotels send a small electric shuttle to collect you at the drop-off point. Drive yourself and you park in Täsch, about five kilometers out, then train in. The whole village runs on silent electric taxis and buses, which is a big part of the charm.

I knew Zermatt was big. The statistics still don't prepare you for standing in it. Vertical drop: 7,477 feet. For scale, Revelstoke in British Columbia is considered massive in North America, and it's 5,620. Longest run: 22 kilometers, the second longest in the world.

And the Matterhorn earns the hype. Every time you look at it, it's different: new angle, new cloud, new light. As you climb, you pass the Gorner Glacier, the largest in the Alps, a prehistoric slab of ice glowing an unreal turquoise. It's the kind of view that stops you mid-conversation.

One day we traded unexplored Swiss terrain for a run into Italy, partly for the fun of it and partly, let's be honest, so we could say we'd done it. It cost about 50 CHF extra per person and we don't regret a franc. We had lunch across the border at Chalet Etoile in Cervinia, ordered family-style off an enormous menu, and skied home tired and grinning.

We seriously considered renting a chalet to keep everyone under one roof, catered or self-catered. In the end we booked La Ginabelle, a four-star, and for our group it was the better call. The daily rhythm wrote itself: ski, pool, kids club, dinner. That structure is the single thing I'd most want you to steal.

The wellness floor was exactly what nine tired bodies needed at the end of a ski day: steam rooms, several kinds of sauna, an indoor/outdoor pool, hot tubs. The kids were even more obsessed than we were, and the pool became the nightly energy-burn before dinner. If your hotel has one, build your evenings around it.

This might be where Zermatt separates itself most from a US ski trip. The on-mountain lunch chalets were a highlight of the week, and the experience is so far from the overpriced, overcooked cafeteria burger you grimly accept at home that it barely feels like the same activity.

Chez Vrony: maybe my favorite. The Vrony burger and the meat-and-cheese plate were both excellent, Vrony herself greeted us, and the views are outstanding. Zum See: a blast. You ski through a tiny historic hamlet to reach it, and the chicken noodle soup was superb.

The Gornergrat railway climbs to the top of the mountain and has run on electricity since 1898, which floored me. You can ride it with or without skis, it's included on IKON, and the views alone justify the trip. We took the kids up one day and they loved it.

The sleeper hit was Gitz Gadi. We went expecting mediocre food and a fun sledge ride afterward, and the food turned out excellent. We rode the Furi lift up, had dinner with a wonderful waiter, then climbed onto sleds and rode roughly 20 minutes back down to the village. The kids talked about it for days.

“What stays with me is that a one-year-old, a pair of grandparents, and everyone in between all came home happy from the same trip.”

Would I go back? In a heartbeat, and probably to La Ginabelle again. We'd love to see Zermatt in summer too, which we hear is spectacular. But more than any single run or restaurant, what stays with me is that a one-year-old, a pair of grandparents, and everyone in between all came home happy from the same trip. That is the rarest thing in family travel, and Zermatt pulled it off.