First ascents Penhall made the
first ascent of a number of peaks and routes in the
Alps during the
silver age of alpinism. Together with
Martin Conway, G. S. Scriven and guides Ferdinand Imseng and Peter and M. Truffer he made the first ascent (in two and a half hours) of the west face of the
Zinalrothorn in August 1878. With
Albert Frederick Mummery and guides
Alexander Burgener and Ferdinand Imseng he made the first ascent of the
Dürrenhorn on 7 September 1879. Penhall was involved in a race with Mummery to be the first to climb the Zmutt ridge of the
Matterhorn, a race which Mummery eventually won. According to Penhall, his interest in finding a new way up the mountain had been kindled by
Edward Whymper's account of the successful first ascent in 1865 in
Scrambles amongst the Alps. As Mummery and Burgener approached the mountain to attempt the ridge they met Penhall, and guides Ferdinand Imseng and Louis Zurbrücken, who had retreated from the mountain after a bad-weather bivouac on the ridge. After a brief rest in
Zermatt, Penhall returned to the Matterhorn, making the first ascent of its west face on 3 September 1879, a harder climb than the Zmutt ridge; his party reached the summit one hour after Mummery's. Penhall wrote an account of the west face climb in the
Alpine Journal entitled 'The Matterhorn from the Zmutt Glacier'. The Penhall Couloir on the west face is named after him.
Death Penhall and
Meiringen guide Andreas Maurer were killed by an avalanche high up on the
Wetterhorn on 3 August 1882. Penhall and Maurer share a double gravestone in the
Grindelwald cemetery. ==External links==