'Tooth of Hérens' — named after the Val d'Hérens on the Swiss side, although confusingly the peak stands at the head of the neighbouring Val d'Arolla. The misattribution dates to 19th-century surveyors who mapped the peak from a distance and labelled it after the wrong valley; the name stuck.
A heavily glaciated peak on the Italy–Switzerland border a few kilometres west of the Matterhorn. Normal route follows the west ridge (Tiefmatten) from the Aosta hut.
Long considered one of the most beautiful and most difficult of the great Pennine summits, the Dent d'Hérens stood out as one of the last unclimbed major peaks of the chain until 1863. The first ascent traversed the south face from the Tiefmatten glacier on the Italian side — a long mixed line that is still the standard route today.
Route lines are approximate — drawn from guidebook waypoints, not GPS tracks. Don't navigate by them.
