Matterhorn Climb

5 minutes past the Hörnli hut, you reach this point where a large rope hangs down from the mountain, the hiking stops and the climbing begins.  You can hike to this, but please don't climb further.

The Matterhorn was first climbed on July 14, 1865 by a group of 7 men led by Edward Whymper, who had been looking for a way up for years.  They were racing to beat a team attempting the climb from the Italian side.  When they reached the top, they scrambled around looking for footprints and finding none, they peered over the Italian side to Jean-Antoine Carrell's team far below.  So what did they do?  In Whymper's words,  "I seized a block of rock and hurled it down, and called upon my companion, in the name of friendship, to do the same. We drove our sticks in, and prized away the crags, and soon a torrent of stones poured down the cliffs. There was no mistake about it this time. The Italians turned and fled."

On their victorious descent, one of Whymper's group, Douglas Hadow, slipped, pulling 3 others with him.  The 4 men fell to their deaths, while Whymper and two local guides only survived because the rope connecting them broke.  The Matterhorn Museum has more on this story along with a length of the broken rope.  This ascent pretty much wrapped up the "golden age of alpinism", a decade when most major peaks in the Alps were climbed for the first time.

About 3000 people climb the Matterhorn each year, and more than 500 have died, about 3 or 4 per year (check out the climber's cemetary behind the church in Zermatt). 

www.alpinehikers.com