Matterhorn

Climbing the Matterhorn.

History:

From 1857 onwards, several unsuccessful attempts were made to climb the Matterhorn, mostly from the Italian side. When Edward Whymper arrived in Valtournenche in July 1865, this was already his sixth summer season in the area. During the previous five summers, Whymper had failed to climb the mountain regarded as the King of the Alps and considered to be unclimbable. It is not the highest summit: the Monte Rosa, almost directly opposite, is higher by almost 170 metres. Yet the mighty rock pyramid had so far defeated all would-be conquerors. Each unsuccessful climb boosted the mountain’s aura of invincibility, so that even experienced local mountain guides often turned down generous offers from foreign expedition leaders. But the Briton did not believe in mountain demons, and his project was based on calm reflection. He had studied the books of Horace Bénédict de Saussure and come to the conclusion that the mountain could be conquered from the Swiss north-east ridge rather than the Italian south-west. It was not Breuil that would be his starting point, but Zermatt! The place where Mont Cervin was known as the Matterhorn – where Whymper had once fallen almost 60 metres.

In 1862, John Tyndall was the first to climb the south-west shoulder, today’s Pic Tyndall, together with the guides Bennen, Anton Walter, Jean-Jacques and Jean-Antoine Carrel. The continuation of the ascent along the Liongrat ridge seemed impossible to him. Whymper also regarded the Liongrat ridge as unfeasible. He therefore tried to persuade his friend Jean-Antoine Carrel to attempt an ascent from the Zermatt side, but the latter insisted that he wanted to climb from the Italian side. In July 1865, Whymper happened to learn from a publican in Breuil that Carrel had set off for the Liongrat ridge again – without informing Whymper. Whymper felt he had been deceived, and hurried to Zermatt in order to assemble a group for an immediate attempt via the Hörnligrat ridge.

On 14 July 1865, Whymper’s 7-man team completed the first ascent of the Matterhorn. The group climbed onto the shoulder over the Hörnligrat ridge and, further up, in the area of today’s fixed cables, diverted onto the north face. Edward Whymper was the first to reach the summit, followed by the mountain guide Michel Croz (from Chamonix), the Reverend Charles Hudson, Lord Francis Douglas, Douglas Robert Hadow (all from England) and the Zermatt mountain guides Peter Taugwalder senior and Peter Taugwalder junior. They spotted Carrel and his group far below on the Pic Tyndall. As the climbers were descending again, and while still above the so-called “Schulter” (“Shoulder”), the four leading men in the rope group (Croz, Hadow, Hudson and Douglas) fell to their deaths on the north face. Three of the dead were recovered several days later on the Matterhorn Glacier, but the remains of Lord Francis Douglas were never found.

Carrel also reached the summit three days later by traversing from the north end of the Italian shoulder across the upper west face and onto the Zmuttgrat ridge (the so-called Galleria Carrel), and then completed the ascent along the ridge.

Видео Matterhorn канала The Visual Yatra