, commemorating the first ascent by Edward Whymper The Matterhorn was one of the last of the main
Alpine mountains to be ascended, not because of its technical difficulty, but because of the fear it inspired in early
mountaineers. The first serious attempts were all from the Italian side, although, despite appearances, the southern routes are technically more difficult. The main figures were
Jean-Antoine Carrel and his uncle Jean-Jacques Carrel, from the
Valtournenche area, who made the first attempts in 1857 and 1858, reaching on the latter occasion. In July 1860, three brothers from Liverpool attempted the mountain, Alfred, Charles and Sandbach Parker, but they turned back at about . In August of the same year, Jean-Jacques Carrel returned to guide, with , Vaughan Hawkins and
John Tyndall to about before turning back. on the
Matterhorn Glacier, and all but Douglas (whose body was never found) are buried in the Zermatt churchyard. Just three days later, on 17 July 1865, Jean-Antoine Carrel and
Jean-Baptiste Bich reached the summit from the Italian side. Valley Just as he did two years before, Whymper asked Carrel to be his guide, but Carrel declined; Whymper was also unsuccessful in hiring other local guides from Breuil. When Whymper discovered Giordano and Carrel's plan, he left Breuil and crossed the
Theodul Pass to Zermatt to hire local guides. He encountered
Lord Francis Douglas, a Scottish mountaineer, who also wanted to climb the Matterhorn. They arrived later in Zermatt in the
Monte Rosa Hotel, where they met two other British climbers — the
Reverend Charles Hudson and his young and inexperienced companion,
Douglas Robert Hadow — who had hired the French guide
Michel Croz to try to make the first ascent. These two groups decided to join forces and try the ascent of the Hörnli ridge. They hired another two local guides, a father and son, both named Peter Taugwalder.
First ascent Whymper and party left Zermatt early in the morning of 13 July 1865, heading to the foot of the Hörnli ridge, which they reached 6 hours later (approximately where the Hörnli Hut is situated today). Meanwhile, Carrel and six other Italian guides also began their ascent of the Italian ridge. Despite its appearance, Whymper wrote that the Hörnli ridge was much easier to climb than the Italian ridge: After camping for the night, Whymper and party started on the ridge. According to Whymper: When the party came close to the summit, they had to leave the ridge for the north face because "[the ridge] was usually more rotten and steep, and always more difficult than the face".
Second ascent on the foreground) On 16 July, two days after the first ascent and the catastrophe,
Jean-Antoine Carrel set out to crown Whymper's victory by proving that the Italian side was not unconquerable. He was accompanied by
Amé Gorret, a priest who had shared with him the first attempt on the mountain back in 1857. Jean-Baptiste Bich and Jean-Augustin Meynet completed the party.
Giordano would have joined them, but Carrel refused absolutely to take him with them; he said he would not have the strength to guide a traveller, and could neither answer for the result nor for any one's life. After hearing Sunday mass at the chapel of Breuil, the party started. Amé Gorret has described this ascent with enthusiasm: "At last we crossed the Col du Lion and set foot upon the pyramid of the Matterhorn!" On the following day, the 17th, they continued the ascent and reached Tyndall's flagstaff. "We were about to enter unknown country," wrote Gorret, "for no man had gone beyond this point." Here opinions were divided; Gorret suggested ascending by the ridge and scaling the last tower straight up. Carrel was inclined to traverse to the west of the peak, and thence go up on the Zmutt side. Naturally the wish of Carrel prevailed, for he was the leader and had not lost the habit of command, notwithstanding his recent defeat. They made the passage of the
enjambée, and traversed the west face to reach the Zmutt ridge. A false step made by one of the party and a fall of icicles from above warned them to return to the direct line of ascent, and the traverse back to the Lion ridge was one of the greatest difficulty. A falling stone injured Gorret in the arm. followed a few weeks later by her rival
Meta Brevoort. In 1876, a party of three English mountaineers made the first ascent without guides. The trio, A. H. Cawood, J. B. Colgrove and the schoolmaster A. Cust, were experienced mountaineers from
Lancashire. They chose a day with particularly favourable weather and reached the summit on 23 July.
Ridges The first direct ascent of the Italian (south-west)
ridge as it is climbed today was by J. J. and J. P. Maquignaz on 13 September 1867. On 20 August 1992, Italian alpinist
Hans Kammerlander and Swiss alpine guide Diego Wellig climbed the Matterhorn four times in just 23 hours and 26 minutes. The route they followed was: Zmutt ridge–summit–Hörnli ridge (descent)–Furggen ridge–summit–Lion ridge (descent)–Lion ridge–summit–Hörnli ridge (descent)–Hörnli ridge–summit–
Hörnli Hut (descent). However the Italian route (Lion Ridge), was not climbed from Duca degli Abruzzi Refuge at 2802 m, but from Carrel Hut, at 3830 m, both uphill and downhill. In 1995, Bruno Brunod climbed Matterhorn from the village
Breuil-Cervinia in 2 h 10 min. and from Breuil-Cervinia to Matterhorn and back, in 3:14:44 On 21 August 2013, the Spanish mountain runner
Kilian Jornet broke Brunod's record as it took him 1 hour, 56 min to the top from Breuil-Cervinia - a round-trip time of 2 hours 52 minutes to return to his starting point.
Faces William Penhall and guides made the first (partial) ascent of the west face, the Matterhorn's most hidden and unknown, one hour after Mummery and party's first ascent of the Zmutt ridge on 3 September 1879. It was not until 1962 that the west face was completely climbed. The ascent was made on 13 August by Renato Daguin and Giovanni Ottin. In January 1978 seven Italian alpine guides made a successful winter climb of Daguin and Ottin's highly direct, and previously unrepeated, 1962 route. But a storm came during their ascent, bringing two metres of snow to Breuil-Cervinia and Zermatt, and their accomplishment turned bitter when one of the climbers died during the descent. The north face, before it was climbed in 1931, was one of the
last great big wall problems in the Alps. To succeed on the north face, good climbing and ice-climbing technique and route-finding ability were required. Unexpectedly it was first climbed by the brothers
Franz and
Toni Schmid on 31 July – 1 August 1931. They reached the summit at the end of the second day, after a night of bivouac. Because they had kept their plans secret, their ascent was a complete surprise. In addition, the two brothers had travelled by bicycle from Munich and after their successful ascent they cycled back home again. The first winter ascent of the north face was made by Hilti von Allmen and Paul Etter on 3-4 February 1962. Bonatti's direct route was not repeated solo until 29 years later, in winter 1994 by
Catherine Destivelle.
Ueli Steck set the record time in climbing the north face (Schmid route) of Matterhorn in 2009 with a time of 1 hour 56 minutes. After Bonatti's climb, the best alpinists were still preoccupied with one last great problem: the "Zmutt Nose", an overhang lying on the right-hand side of the north face. In July 1969 two Italians, Alessandro Gogna and Leo Cerruti, attempted to solve the problem. It took them four days to figure out the unusual overhangs, avoiding however its steepest part. In July 1981 the Swiss Michel Piola and Pierre-Alain Steiner surmounted the Zmutt Nose by following a direct route, the Piola-Steiner. The first ascent of the south face was made by Enzo Benedetti with guides
Louis Carrel and
Maurice Bich on 15 October 1931, In the 2000s, there was a trend of fewer people dying each year on the mountain. This has been attributed partly to a greater awareness of the risks, and also due to the fact that a majority of climbers now use local guides. However, in the summer of 2018, at least ten people died on the mountain. Here is a list of people who died on the mountain whose bodies were not recovered until later: • 1954 French skier Henri le Masne went missing on the Matterhorn. In 2005 remains were found, identified as le Masne in 2018 • 1970 Two Japanese climbers missing; remains found after 45 years in 2015 • 1979 British climber missing; remains found after 34 years in 2014 • 2014 Japanese hiker missing; remains found 2018 • 2016 Two British climbers missing; remains found 2016
Legacy: beginning of mountain culture The first ascent of the Matterhorn changed mountain culture. Whymper's book about his first ascent,
Scrambles Amongst the Alps, published in 1871, was a worldwide bestseller. Tourists began to visit Switzerland in the summer to see the Alps and often hired locals as guides. With the beginning of alpine skiing in the early 20th century, tourists began traveling to Switzerland in winter also. Mountaineering, in part, helped transform Switzerland's mountain regions from poor rural areas to tourist destinations. This combination of mountain climbing, skiing and tourism, was used in the western United States, creating
Sun Valley,
Vail,
Jackson Hole, and other mountain towns around the world. == Climbing routes ==