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Pocket Switzerland

Matterhorn

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Summit · canton of Valais · 4478 m

Switzerland's iconic summit, a perfect pyramid above Zermatt.

From the basket

Above Zermatt the pyramid stands alone, and that is what makes it so recognisable: a pyramid of rock that leans on no neighbour. From the balloon, arriving up the valley, you first see its north-east flank and the Hörnli, which comes down towards the village like a giant staircase. The higher you climb, the more the pyramid narrows: the four faces close together about four hundred metres below the top, in what the guides call the “roof”.

Fly round it and you will pass from one country to another. The mountain sits on the border: to the north-east, Switzerland and Zermatt; to the south, Italy, and the village of Breuil-Cervinia. Four ridges outline it, those of the Hörnli, the Lion, the Zmutt and the Furggen. On the Hörnli ridge, at 4003 metres, an emergency shelter has clung to the rock since 1915.

The race to the top is among the best-known tales in all the Alps. Edward Whymper’s party stood on the summit via the Hörnli on the 14th of July 1865; on the way down, four of its seven men plunged to their deaths. Three days later Jean-Antoine Carrel’s Italian party made it too, taking the Lion, a harder ridge.

The summit itself is not a point but a rocky ridge about a hundred metres long, with a Swiss summit at one end and an Italian one at the other. Pass over gently: you are flying above the spot where the waters hesitate between the Rhône and the Po.

Sources: Wikipedia, “Cervin” (in French).

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