Climbing the Matterhorn - A Collection of Historical Mountaineering Articles on the Brave Attempts to Scale One of the Highest Peaks in the Alps

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A TRAVERSE OF THE MATTERHORN

EDWARD Whymper’s Scrambles Amongst the Alps does not seek to capture the imagination by picturesque turns of phrase or anything which might be considered dramatic in the style of writing. Most of the chapters are written in a prosaic, matter-of-fact manner, and we must go to the original drawings in order to get underneath the dour and rugged exterior of the famous mountaineer.

Like many another enthusiastic climber, I was drawn to the mountains by an early perusal of Whymper’s Scrambles, but I had only the small, cheap edition published many years ago by Messrs Nelson, which did not include any of the author’s drawings. I think that it was my mother’s appreciation of the classic which first directed my attention to it and persuaded me that there was much more in the mountaineering chapters than in those earlier ones on the construction of the Mont Cenis tunnel and the author’s theories and observations on the flow of glaciers. Thus, a youthful pre-occupation with engineering and science was transformed by Whymper’s epic of the conquest of the Matterhorn into the beginnings of a life-long enthusiasm for the mountains themselves.

Even a rugged individualist like Whymper could become almost lyrical when writing of the uncanny attraction, or even fixation which this mountain exercised over the most unlikely persons—‘Men who ordinarily spoke or wrote like rational beings, when they came under its power, seemed to quit their senses and ranted, and rhapsodised, losing for a time all common forms of speech’. As a concluding reflection, a sort of epilogue to the tragedy of the first ascent of the mountain in 1865, he wrote, ‘Ages hence, generations unborn will gaze upon its awful precipices and wonder at its unique form. However exalted may be their ideas and however exaggerated their expectations, none will come to return disappointed’.

I made up my mind that I must and would climb it some day; but, as I had also read A. F. Mummery’s account of the first ascent of the Zmutt Ridge of the mountain in 1879, I decided that I must wait until I had gained sufficient experience to enable me to climb the Matterhorn by Mummery’s route, without any professional assistance.

MAP J                 MATTERHORN, 14,780 ft.

My first Alpine holiday was spent in the Tyrol, and it was not until 1925, when climbing in the Bernese Oberland with Frank Smythe, that I first saw the Matterhorn. For many hours we were slowly traversing the difficult, spiky ridge from the Schreckhorn to the Lauteraarhorn. The complete chain of the Pennine Alps was in full view, with the truncated pyramid of the Matterhorn in the centre. Can any mountain maintain its influence and reputation as a solitary item in such a vast panorama? There are many lofty peaks among the Pennines. The level ridge connecting the Swiss and Italian summits of the Matterhorn seemed to detract from its dignity by cutting away the apex of the pyramid. There was an indefinable, almost imperceptible sense of anticlimax about it.

THE MATTERHORN

From the summit of Dent Blanche

In 1926 my impressions of the peak were no more fortunate. I viewed it from the side of Arolla, first from the summit of the Évêque and next from the Col de Bertol, across the lofty snow-fields of the Tête Blanche. Clearly, no mountain can look its best with the whole of its base cut away. A week later I did see it properly from Zermatt, but again the spell was broken, for I climbed Monte Rosa and, sceptic as I remained at bottom, could not forget that I was actually higher than its pointed summit. After these unsatisfactory experiences I resolved to try and climb the mountain at the earliest opportunity. I could not bring myself to believe that level-headed men like Whymper and Mummery were insincere in what they wrote about the Matterhorn. There was a depth of reality in their enthusiasm, and, if I hoped to recapture the subtle essence or vision which I suspected that I had lost, I could only do so by actual contact and struggle with the mountain itself.

The opportunity offered itself during the summer of 1928. Charlie Parry and I sat on the summit of the Dent Blanche and watched a thunderstorm gather about the upper rocks of the Matterhorn. There was no anticlimax on that occasion. All the other peaks around us were in clear sunshine. Only on the Matterhorn was there an inky turmoil of cloud, broken by violet flashes of lightning. We resolved to attempt the Zmutt Ridge at the end of our holiday. We reached Zermatt in an evening of torrential rain and frequent bursts of thunder and lightning. A party told us how they had been benighted on the upper glacier when attempting the traverse of the Dom and Täschhorn. Our prospects were indeed gloomy, as we had only another two days available before the end of our holiday.

Next morning we collected our stock of provisions and started off by the woodland track for the Staffelalp. It was a forenoon of sultry heat and our peak was hidden in dull, grey cloud. However, the hostess at the Inn assured us that the weather was improving, thus encouraging us to proceed along the moraine-covered Zmutt glacier. Our intention was to make a bivouac as high as possible on the rocks below the Zmutt Ridge. We had waterproof sleeping sacks of a light pattern which would secure us against the cold of an average summer night, and a high camp would give us a much better chance of completing the traverse of the mountain. We could only trust that the predictions of the landlady of the Staffelalp as to the probable course of the weather would be as fortunate as those of Mummery before his first ascent, when he insisted that all was well in spite of the gloomy forebodings of his guides, thus acquiring an altogether undeserved reputation for astounding wisdom in this essential branch of Alpine mountaineering.

We were not so fortunate, or at least not at once. A furious squall of rain and snow drove us to shelter under a huge boulder supported by a pillar of ice. Again we progressed, but the ferocity and persistence of the next storm were so unmistakable that we gave in and fled to the shelter and comfort of the Schönbühl Hut. Within was a cheerful group of climbers, German and Austrian. We passed a pleasant evening together, exchanging our adventures and experiences on many mountains. The barometer, meanwhile, was falling steadily, but the Germans were determined to tackle the Dent Blanche. Though without a shred of hope, I mustered up sufficient virtue to rise about 3 a.m. in order to look out at the weather, which was as bad as might have been expected. I then slept soundly for another six hours with a clear conscience. The weather was still as bad as ever, and the Dent Blanche party had returned several hours before, without having got very far.

We were now faced with another problem, as the delay had no corresponding effect on our appetites. We must procure some more bread, butter and cheese at all costs. We decided to return to the Staffelalp for a good meal, and endeavour to coax the required provisions from the good lady of the Inn. The Staffelalp exceeded our expectations, and a full rucksack was an easy and comfortable burden for a pair of lazy, well-fed mountaineers strolling back to the hut in the late afternoon.

The weather was undoubtedly on the mend. We stopped and bathed in a rock-bound tarn, and, while we sunned ourselves on the bank, the clouds parted asunder and the upper crags of the Matterhorn smiled upon us in a dazzling, white garment of new snow. Then the clouds broke up altogether, and, in a perfect evening, Parry and I prospected the crossing of the Zmutt glacier, the first part of our route for the early morning. It was clear to us that the belated efforts of the sun would not avail to clear away the new snow and ice from the most difficult part of our climb: but the mountaineer who does not attempt his peak in an interval of good weather deserves no more than to be caught out by the next tantrums of that fickle goddess. We returned to the hut and prepared to make a very early start.

We were out of bed by 1 a.m. The night was calm and clear, and we lost no time over breakfast. Inside an hour we were crossing the glacier in the starlight, for the moon was very low in the south-west, casting a wan light on the upper snows of our peak, but hardly any illumination in the valleys. We made for a small, tributary glacier which descended from the lower end of the Zmutt Ridge. There was little difficulty as we mounted rapidly over hard snow. Well to our right and above us was a snowy saddle, which we reached at 3.30 a.m. The feeble candle lantern which we had been using guttered out, and we were obliged to proceed rather more slowly. There was still no difficulty, as we were traversing gently upwards over fairly easy ground below the cliffs which fell away towards us from our ridge. We were travelling light and did not carry crampons at all. In the circumstances this did not matter very much, but the night frost was considerable, and several of the snow slopes were rather hard for kicking steps. Parry did not appear to have as sharp nails as I, and I heard him muttering occasional anathemas at the hardness of the surface.

The last snow crossing led us upwards to easy rocks which promised a direct access to the snowy crest of the ridge. Soon we were clambering up the rocks beside a small watercourse Before this disappeared we made a halt for second breakfast and boiled a small pan of water. It was a short halt, for the cold was intense. The rocks now became slabby, with occasional icicles and an icy crust on many of the ledges. Things were not at all easy for us, and we had to be very careful in picking our route. We gained the lower end of a long slope of hard snow, and the wind assailed us from behind. Every now and then a terrific gust would envelop us in a cloud of frozen spindrift which stung like a sandblast. We could only cling to our holds until the onslaught ceased and make what progress we could before the next one came. Then we got on to better snow and, for some reason, the gusts ended altogether. Plugging up the hard snow was warm work, and the snow seemed to become harder as we approached the ridge, although we were only forced to cut steps for short distances, now and again. We emerged into the sunshine of the ridge crest at 7.30 a.m. The first part of our ascent was accomplished.

The North-West Face of the Matterhorn

Dotted line show approx. route up Zmutt Ridge

Left skyline is Swiss Ridge, right skyline Italian Ridge

The mountain promptly exacted its tribute of respect, as a fierce gust of wind whirled my hat in the air and sent it sailing far over the Matterhorn glacier on the other side. A thin woolly helmet served me just as well for the rest of the day. The snowy ridge was easy as far as the rocky teeth which are so well seen from the Staffelalp. They, too, were in good condition, and Parry did some rapid and excellent leading. We passed successive teeth on opposite sides, but one traverse on the Tiefenmatten slope required a good deal of care. Then we crossed over again by a gap and traversed above the Matterhorn Gletscher. We were now in shadow, but protected from the high wind. The compensating disadvantage was much drifting of the snow and the need for clearing all the holds in the rock. We also encountered some ice, whereas the crest of the ridge had been swept clear by the wind.

Increasing difficulty forced us backward and upward to the crest of the ridge. We were still a considerable way short of the place where a huge couloir drops straight down to the glacier on the left. Interesting and varied climbing continued all the way to the end of the lower ridge, where it abuts against the great, overhanging precipice which is known as the Nose of Zmutt. We had been very fortunate in the dry, bare, windswept condition of the rock, which was perfectly sound and offered very good holds. As we sat down for a short halt from 10.15 to 10.30 a.m. we began to consider that we had a reasonable prospect of success, although we knew that the next section, over the plastered Tiefenmatten slabs, was the crucial one.

There was not much snow on them, to begin with, but all the steeper slabs were partly covered with a thin film of ice, with a profusion of icicles hanging from the cracks and mantelshelves. I do not know whether it could be described as an effect of altitude, but my mind experienced a curious sense of detachment, as if I were merely a casual spectator of our progress. The dreaded Tiefenmatten face which, when seen from the Tête Blanche, looks steeper than any roof of an early Gothic cathedral, seemed to be almost diminutive and to offer no great difficulty. We appeared to be very high up on the mountain and by no means far below the summit. Once again, it was the action of climbing which corrected these fantasies.

We did not wish to traverse too far across the Tiefenmatten face, as we should have to return to our ridge at a higher level. At first, good upward progress could be combined with traversing, but we soon found that we must climb to a steeper shelf which ran across the face. The steeper rocks were festooned and glazed with ice, and we were faced with two very difficult pitches, of which the second was severe and troublesome. After negotiating this icy wall we could expect much easier progress for a long way. I attempted one way up and was repulsed, for there were several holds which were insecure. Parry was no more successful than I, and it seemed that we must tackle the pitch by another way which involved a short overhang. The whole difficulty did not exceed twenty-five feet in height. After a severe struggle, and not without carving numerous holds out of the stumps of icicles, we overcame the problem. It was a nasty place, but I think that the second man was adequately secured.

As we had expected, progress became easier and holds more abundant, although we still had to move very carefully. We were now above the Nose of Zmutt, and it was time to work back towards the upper ridge. This was soon possible by an upward traverse to the left, leading us to a steep slope of hard snow which continued until it lay against the upper ridge. Here, again, we had to cut a good many steps, but the snow was secure, despite the fact that it was a thinnish layer frozen to the slabs beneath. We regained the crest of the ridge without further difficulty, almost at the highest practicable point, beyond which it swung straight up towards the summit with a sheer drop to the slabs which we had just left. The climb did not tally with the accounts which I had read. Where was the famous galerie of Carrel, by which the mountain had been first ascended from the Italian ridge? We had not crossed it, so far as we knew, and yet we must be above it.

We proceeded up the crest. There was much more snow than before, but the holds were good. Parry led one awkward traverse on the east side with small, snow-filled holds, and we regained the crest. Then the slope eased off, and at 12.50 p.m. we stood on the Italian summit of the Matterhorn. It was untrodden, and there had been no visitors from the Italian side since the bad weather had sprinkled the mountain with fresh snow. We were alone, and the ambition of many years’ standing was gratified. It would be idle to recount the glories of that panorama. There was not a cloud in the sky, and a sea of mountains lay around and beneath. The most striking feature of the Matterhorn is its complete isolation. There were quite a few mountains in that panorama which exceeded ours in height—Mont Blanc, the Weisshorn, the Dom and Monte Rosa—but they did not appear to do so. Zermatt and its valley lay at our feet, very far beneath us and utterly remote. At the other side were Breuil and the Italian Val Tournanche. The Lyskamm of Monte Rosa was, perhaps, the most imposing feature. Again I experienced that peculiar feeling of detachment and unreality. It appeared incredible that such a place could be a part of the material world, and no less so that we ourselves were there.

We passed along the level, narrow ridge to the higher, Swiss summit and found a dry, sheltered spot on the rocks just below it. There we spent an idle, luxurious hour, eating our lunch, enjoying the sun and revelling in the wide prospect. A few, small clouds were hanging over the Italian valleys. No vagaries of mountain or weather could rob us of our achievement. Parry had only one cigarette and I had just enough tobacco to fill one pipe, but that was sufficient, as we had a long descent before us.

At 2 p.m. we moved off downwards, over a steepening slope of snow. We found the footprints of earlier visitors who had come up the Swiss Ridge, but had not proceeded to the Italian summit. About a quarter of an hour below the top we halted, in order to allow a party of two very slow Germans to pass. They were literally crawling up the face on all fours, with an incredible length of loose rope between them in many kinks and coils. They told us that there was much ice lower down, and were very thankful to hear that they were so near the top. We were curious to know where they intended to pass the night, and they assured us that they would reach the Solvay Hut before dark. We hoped they would, and considered that they were just the sort of people that the Refuge Solvay was designed to shelter; although we knew that this small hut was not supposed to be used except in a case of emergency—accident, bad weather or benightment. They were heavily built, and of early middle age. We thought it very courageous of them to have come so far.

We thought it very courageous of them to have come so far!

Lower down, we came to the uppermost of the fixed ropes and, be it confessed, had no scruples about making use of it. Like crampons, with which we were not provided, it was a time saver. This was the steep part of the summit tower of the mountain. There were more fixed ropes below this one, and we used them all. There are actually plenty of holds on this section, but, under the prevailing conditions, everything was masked with snow and ice. The anchorage was generally good enough for one of us to belay the other, even without the wire ropes, but the descent would have taken a long time. Below the steep part was the Shoulder, where the route left the edge above the Matterhorn glacier and kept more to the right. Then came another steep section, and we returned to the northern edge. The Solvay Hut was in a sheltered position, a short distance below, and we had taken a good two hours from the summit to reach it, without wasting any time. The small hut did not look very inviting for a stay during prolonged bad weather.

The irritating feature of the Hörnli (or Swiss) Ridge is the deadening uniformity of its lower half. From the summit one might, in a flight of imagination, deem it possible to fling a stone on to the roof of the Belvedere Hotel, 4,000 feet beneath. In reality it takes hours of steady plodding to reach that hospice. Below the Solvay we found the route more difficult to follow, so that Parry and I wandered too much to the right, towards the Furggen face, making it necessary for us to traverse back to the left in order to regain the ridge. Below this point there was no more snow, and we soon came to the remains of the old Cabane. Then we followed occasional nail scratches on the rocks, descending a little subordinate ridge to the right of the true one. Other incidents were a short traverse on the north face and the crossing of several points on the crest before we finally abandoned the ridge altogether and continued obliquely downwards to the right. The last difficulty, really more of a nuisance than a problem, was the descent of a loose and treacherous gully of rotten rock. This may be really dangerous at times, when it acts as a funnel for the debris loosened by other parties higher up on the mountain. We took off the rope and descended in close order. Soon afterwards, at 6.30 p.m., we walked into the Belvedere and drank a bottle of wine.

We did not remain long enough to allow our muscles to set, as we were still 5,000 feet above Zermatt. An easy track led round the north base of the Hörnli rocks, and then past the beautiful Schwartzsee, which reflected the roseate hues of sunset on the snows of Monte Rosa and the Lyskamm. There was little time to spare, and we hurried downwards towards the wooded slopes above the gorge of Zmutt, where we ultimately joined the wider track from the Staffelalp, and were satisfied that we could not lose our way in the forest. I could never forget the story of a friend who had hired a guide to take him up an Alpine peak. After a successful expedition the guide left him to find his own way to his hotel by an ill-marked track through the woods, for the last mile or so. It was both dark and rainy. After a miserable night of aimless wandering he finally emerged from the forest, quite close to the hotel, in the grey light of early morning.

We halted on the bridge over the Zmutt torrent and gazed upward through the trees at the faint outline of our peak. In the half light it emitted a pale, ghostly radiance. Our weary minds could scarcely realise that only a few short hours had passed since we had rested on that ethereal summit. Then the spectre assumed form and substance as the rising moon silvered the mantle of new snow on the uppermost crest of the mountain.

‘Silent the finger of the summit stood,

 Icy in pure, thin air . . . glittering with snows’.*

The Matterhorn had resumed its moral ascendancy, and all its atmosphere of inaccessibility. By the hard way of a mountaineer I had regained the earlier vision which I feared that I had lost. And yet, there are many active, cultured and intelligent people who continue to ask in wonder why men climb mountains!

* From The Dauber, by John Masefield.

The Matterhorn

By A. F. MUMMERY

AT THE AGE OF FIFTEEN the crags of the Via Mala and the snows of the Théodule roused a passion within me that has grown with years, and has to no small extent moulded my life and thought. It has led me into regions of such fairy beauty that the fabled wonders of Xanadu seem commonplace beside them; it has brought me friends who may be relied on in fair weather and in foul; and it has stored my mind with memories that are treasures, corruptible neither by moth nor rust, sickness nor old age. My boyish delight in the great white peaks towering above the gloom of pines is still awakened when the lumbering diligence rolls through the gorge of the Diosaz or when the Matterhorn rises from out the foliage of the Val Tournanche. I remember, as if it were yesterday, my first sight of the great mountain. It was shining in all the calm majesty of a September moon, and, in the stillness of an autumn night, it seemed the very embodiment of mystery and a fitting dwelling-place for the spirits with which old legends people its stone-swept slopes. From that moment I have been one of the great peak’s most reverent worshippers, and whenever the mighty rock appears above the distant horizon, I hail its advent with devoutest joy. Even the vulgarisation of Zermatt, the cheap trippers and their trumpery fashions, cannot wholly drive me from the lower slopes, and I still love to gaze at it from among the pines of the Riffelberg, or to watch its huge mass soaring above the flowery meadows of the Staffelalp. In those distant days (1871), however, it was still shrouded with a halo of but half-banished inaccessibility, and, as I looked at it through the tangle of the pines or from the breezy alps, I scarcely dared to hope that one day I might be numbered among the glorious few who had scaled its frozen cliffs. Three years later, however, the ascent had become fashionable, the deluge had begun, and with its earlier waves I was swept on to the long-desired summit.

I am aware that from that moment my interest in the peak should have ceased, that the well-conducted climber never repeats an ascent; that his object is to reach the summit, and that object once attained his work is over and he should rest in ignoble ease. The true faith on this subject is crystallised and resplendent in a remark made to me last year by a bandbox inmate of the Monte Rosa Hotel: "I had to go to Grindelwald to ascend the Eiger; it was a beastly nuisance, but I wanted to finish off the Oberland: shall never go there again!"

For myself, I am fain to confess a deplorable weakness in my character. No sooner have I ascended a peak than it becomes a friend, and delightful as it may be to seek fresh woods and pastures new, in my heart of hearts I long for the slopes of which I know every wrinkle, and on which each crag awakens memories of mirth and laughter and of the friends of long ago. As a consequence of this terrible weakness, I have been no less than seven times on the top of the Matterhorn. I have sat on the summit with my wife when a lighted match would not flicker in the windless air, and I have been chased from its shattered crest and down the Italian ridge by the mad fury of thunder, lightning, and whirling snow. Yet each memory has its own peculiar charm, and the wild music of the hurricane is hardly a less delight than the glories of a perfect day. The idea which cleaves unto the orthodox mountaineer that a single ascent, on one day, in one year, enables that same mountaineer to know and realise how that peak looks on all other days, in all other years, suggests that he is still wallowing in the lowest bogs of Philistinism. It is true the crags and pinnacles are the same, but their charm and beauty lies in the ever-changing light and shade, in the mists which wreath around them, in the huge cornices and pendent icicles, in all the varying circumstances of weather, season, and hour. Moreover, it is not merely that the actual vision impressed on the retina reflects every mood and change of summer storm and sunshine; but the observer himself is hardly less inconstant. On one day he is dominated by the tingling horror of the precipice, the gaunt bareness of the stupendous cliffs, or the deadly rush of the rocks when some huge block breaks from its mooring and hurtles through the air—a fit emblem of resistless wrath. On yet another day he notices none of these things; lulled by the delicate tints of opal and azure, he revels in the vaporous softness of the Italian valleys, in the graceful sweep of the wind-drifted snow, or even in the tiny flowers wedged in the joints of the granite. While the mountain may sometimes impress its mood on the spectator, as often the spectator only sees that which harmonises with his own. A man may doubtless be so constructed that

A primrose by the river’s brim

A yellow primrose is to him

and in no conceivable circumstance or time could it ever be aught else; but others more happily constituted, who can rejoice in the beauty of the external world, are scarcely likely to feel the taint of staleness, no matter how thoroughly they may know the substantial basis of rock and ice on which the sun and cloud, mist, air, and sky are ever weaving the glory of the view.

It was, then, with an interest in the great mountain only intensified by my first ascent, that I crossed the Tiefenmattenjoch in 1879. While descending the glacier, I gazed long and earnestly at the great Z’Mutt ridge towering above the long slopes of rock and stone-swept couloirs of the western face. I was by no means the first who had so gazed; among others, Mr Whymper with his guides Michel Croz and Christian Almer, had studied it carefully from the crags of the Dent Blanche. The conclusions they came to may be gathered from the following paragraph: "My old enemy—the Matterhorn—seen across the basin of the Z’Muttgletscher, looked totally unassailable. ‘Do you think,’ the men asked, ‘that you, or anyone else, will ever get up that mountain?’