Weisshorn
German for 'white horn' — descriptive of the peak's permanently snow-covered upper slopes, which look strikingly white from the Rhône valley far below.
A three-faced pyramid widely regarded as one of the most beautiful peaks of the Alps. Normal route follows the east ridge from the Weisshorn Hut above Randa.
John Tyndall — the same Irish physicist who would shortly turn back on the Matterhorn — climbed the Weisshorn on 19 August 1861 by the long east ridge from the Bies glacier, an exhausting day of more than 3000 metres of ascent that Tyndall later described as the hardest physical effort of his life. The Weisshorn is widely regarded by alpinists as the most beautiful peak in the Alps; Whymper, who never climbed it, said that he would rather have stood on its summit than on Mont Blanc.
Summit · huts that serve as bases for routes on this peak
- Weisshornhütte2,932 m