A group of us are headed to Zermatt in 3 weeks and I’m trying to work out the best/cheapest way of using the Swiss rail tickets in conjunction with the lift passes. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Paul

We bought a 3 day ‘peak pass’ in Tasch station for £78 (€105) – gave us unlimited travel on trains, Gornergrat, lifts & gondolas

That sounds good value. The tourist office pointed us towards the sports pass, do you know anything about them?

All the various prices should be there on the internet for you to compare (the Swiss are very good at providing all prices on the internet and in English). The only variable is the weather, and the weather in the alps can be very fickle, you could spend a whole holiday and never see a mountain. If there’s a big difference in price then go for it, but if there isn’t much between an all inclusive pass and your best case senario on pay as you go at the lifts/mountain railways, then go for the pay as you go. You also need to read the small print with some of the offers, some of them might not include certain key lifts and/or the Gonergrat railway.

No sorry, it was my first time there but the guy who organised the trip was on his forth visit & said that was the best value. He has now set up http://trail-hunters.com/
Can’t see a lot of difference in them here http://zermatt.ch/en/page.cfm/lifts_and_pistes/prices
We were there in the first week in October & covered about 180km in three days mainly from the Sunnegga & Gornergrat, we did try Schwarzsee but the decents left zero room for error!
Maps here http://zermatt.ch/en/page.cfm/lifts_and_pistes/piste_map
Our photos are here http://s393.photobucket.com/albums/pp14/zermatt08/

Cheers Snaps. I found the lifts and prices pages slightly confusing as I don’t know the area but if the “peak pass” covers the gorergrat as well as the rest of it, that’s great. Always useful to have an idea of what’s what when going to a new area. Thanks for the links, going to have a look at the pics now.

The important lifts to have are Zermatt to Rothorn, Gornegrat train, Schwarzsee (snaps, did you not find the trails off the backside of the alp?) and the train from Tasch to Zermatt. With that you can get loads of riding in.

Looking on the Zermatt website it seems only a very few trails are allowed for biking? and that there is a fine for riding off trail. Is this generally enforced?

TM – where do you mean by ‘backside’ ? from Schwarzsee we came down the Furgg valley but as it is sheltered from the sun for most of the day it was very sketchy with a 150 ft sheer drop to your right for over a mile!
We also rode 20km down the road at http://www.graechen.ch/sites/ & drove about 50km to the Bellwald bikepark
http://www.bikeparkmap.com/de/view/166/schweiz/bikepark-bellwald

Head down to the lake you can see from the top of schwarzsee, then head up the valley, then contour down to the resevoir. Also, there’s a switchback track heading down to zermatt from schwarzsee on a trail that doesn’t have those drops.

Yes I know where you mean.

Hi Paul

If you need any help with Zermatt drop me a line and i can help you out with any Qs. If I'm riding when your here I can show you a few trails. There is mass's of riding in the area, Zermatt is good for a 2 or 3 days. There are lots of walkers on some of the routes which can be a problem. I would recommend fitting a bell to your bike. The riding is fantastic. Very technical in places. If you need any help with accommodation or transfers contact me through my web site at http://www.trail-hunters.com Enjoy your trip. Chris