Hannah's RYE year in Switzerland: Stellisee

Ok, so heres to one of my favourite experiences in Switzerland. My friend Jade and I have always wanted to go to this mountain lake called Stellisee, in Zermatt and we also always wanted to go camping somewhere in Switzerland. My friends host mom took Jade and I camping at Stellisee, killing two birds with one stone. They picked me up in Düdingen, we drove close to Zermatt and then took the train into the village. We started our hike at 6:30ish in the village and made our way up the mountain. We were accompanied by their two dogs aka. large rats. when we were about half way we stopped and had our gourmet dinner of nuts and dried fruit. I couldn't tell you how many marmots we saw, and they would often give out a warning call that sounded like a house alarm when they would see our dogs. We also saw mountain goats and cows. As we were walking up the sun was setting and the light reflecting on the Matterhorn was beautiful. So we had a map which gave us an idea on what signs we had to follow but neither of us had been hiking there before. We watched the sunset and enjoyed our hike, seeing as we started our hike later the sun wasn't melting us and as the sun went down it got cooler so it was a really nice temperature to hike in. When 10pm came around we still weren't there but a part of me didn't want the hike to end because it was just so beautiful. We watched the moon rise from the mountains it was like nothing I had seen before. It was so big and bright I felt like I could touch it. It was so bright we didn't even need flashlights because the natural light was strong enough. I knew that we were approaching our destination because I could feel the ground as it became moist. When we got to the lake at around 10:30pm-ish my breath was taken away (partially because I had just walked up a mountain 4 hours but mainly because the view was unreal), we could see the reflection of the moon and mountains on the lake. We found a nice flat place to put our sleeping bags and then Jade and I went and took some pictures. We didn't have a tent because we wanted to sleep under the stars. It wasn't the most comfortable sleep I've had but it was ok because I would just lay there and look at the stars. We woke up at 4:30 to watch the sun rise. It was the most beautiful sunrise that I've ever seen. It was also one of the few times that I have been ok with waking up at 4:30am. After the sunrise we went back to bed for about an hour and then when we woke up again we went swimming in the lake. Walking down was the hardest part of this adventure because it was steep and our knees turned weak. An interesting fact about my friends host mom: she's 62. I don't know many 62 year olds that can hike like we did. We walked the Sunnegga and took the bahn down to the village and hopped back on the train. But let me just say... That was such an amazing experience and if anyone goes to Switzerland I would 10/10 recommend doing this.
** ATTENTION ** please excuse me for the amount of pics of the Matterhorn