Hörnlihütte

The Belvedere hotel opened on the Hörnli ridge spur at 3260 m in 1880, fifteen years after the first ascent of the Matterhorn, to serve the rush of guided ascents that followed Whymper's tragedy. The SAC took over the building, added a separate Hörnlihütte in 1911, and amalgamated the two structures into a single hut in 1980.

The present Hörnlihütte was rebuilt completely in 2015 — opened on the 150th anniversary of the first ascent and inaugurated by representatives of the Whymper and Taugwalder families — to a striking modern design by the Zürich firm Hans Zurniwen, with the original 1880 façade preserved on the south wall. It sleeps 130 climbers and is operated as a hotel-grade refuge: bookings, hot showers, four-course dinners and a 4 a.m. breakfast service that turns out a procession of head-torches up the Hörnli ridge in the dark.

A quarter of a way up the ridge, at 4003 m, stands the Solvay-Hütte, an emergency shelter funded in 1915 by the Belgian industrialist Ernest Solvay (founder of the eponymous chemistry conferences). The Solvay is a hexagonal hut intended only for use in emergencies — its door is locked except in distress — and it has been the saving of dozens of parties caught out by sudden Matterhorn storms over the past century.

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