Matterhorn / Cervin
German Matter-horn, 'horn of the meadow' — Matt refers to the flat valley pastures of Zermatt (originally Zer Matt, 'at the meadow'), and Horn is the standard Swiss-German term for a sharp peak. The French name Cervin (Italian Cervino) is unrelated, deriving via Latin Mons Silvinus or Mons Cervinus ('mountain of stags') from the Roman name for the surrounding range.
Iconic pyramidal peak above Zermatt and Cervinia.
Edward Whymper, after seven failed attempts on the southwest (Italian) ridge, switched sides and climbed the Matterhorn from Zermatt by the Hörnli ridge on 14 July 1865 with Lord Francis Douglas, the Reverend Charles Hudson, Douglas Hadow, the Chamonix guide Michel Croz, and the Zermatt father-and-son Peter Taugwalder. Three days behind them, Jean-Antoine Carrel — Whymper's old Italian partner — reached the top by the Lion ridge. The Whymper party's triumph turned to disaster on the descent: Hadow slipped, pulling Croz, Hudson and Douglas off the upper face, and the rope between Douglas and the elder Taugwalder broke. The four men fell more than a thousand metres to the Matterhorn glacier; Whymper and the Taugwalders survived. The accident scandalised Victorian Britain, prompted a Zermatt inquiry into the broken rope, and is conventionally taken to mark the end of the Golden Age of alpinism.
Summit · huts that serve as bases for routes on this peak
- Hörnlihütte3,260 m