Glacier Skiing

This was the area where you could ski on the glacier. It was actually pretty crappy. The snow was all icy and there wasn't too much terrain open. What you see here was maybe half of the total terrain. It was also really crowded. There were lots of kids training for racing hence all of the gates set up on the right. It is not a lot of fun skiing when people are warming up for racing skiing by you extremely fast and on the edge of control.
I discovered that European skiers are not very polite and don't have much of a concept of a line. The first time I got in line I went to the back and patiently waited. After a few minutes I was surprised to see that I was still the last person in line. I discovered that it is pretty much a free for all to push your way to the front. Once I figure that out it was alright. I had rental skis, so I didn't really care about using them to box other people out. I had actually been told this by several Europeans who I talked to at Breckenridge last winter. They told me that they really enjoyed skiing in the U.S. because people were much more polite and things were more orderly.
Another thing that I found funny was when you were getting on the T-bar lifts (there were only 4 T-bars open and no chairlifts) you had to grab your own T-bar. In the U.S. there is generally a lift operator who stands there and grabs the bar and puts it on your butt for you. No such help in Europe. Quite a few people, especially snowboards were getting wrecked trying to accomplish this maneuver. I myself almost lost my balance once.
Since the resort is in both Switzerland and Italy, you see signs like the one below. It is a bit more significant than the California/Nevada signs at Heavenly. The first time that I ever crossed the border into Italy, it was on skis. There was a lodge open on the Italian side where I stopped a few times to warm up. I suppose I could have taken a cable car down into Italy if I had wanted to as well.
It was a novel experience summer skiing in Zermatt. I don't think I would do it again in the summer, but I would like to come back in the winter at some point.