My Matterhorn experience

That's me St. Bernhard and Sepp at the top.

On 14 July 1990 it was 125 years since the Matterhorn, the last of the 4000 meter peaks in the Alps was conquered. After eight tries, a group with the Englishman Eduard Whymper as leader reached the top, a climb that until then had seemed impossible. 

Unfortunately, the triumph turned into tragedy when the party was to climb down. The 18 year old, totally inexperienced climber, Robert Hadow from England, slipped and fell a couple of hundred meters from the top. And in his fall, he dragged three other climbers with him down the North Wall to a glacier 1200 meters below.

Whymper and his two guides had better luck. The thin rope broke and they stood shocked on the same mountain where I stood on 11 September 1991. Climbing the Matterhorn is not without danger.

Every year climbers die on the mountain because they lose their way, get hit in the head by a stone or are surprised by bad weather. The mountain is one of the deadliest peaks in the Alps: from 1865 – when it was first climbed – to 1995, 500 alpinists have died on it.

My Matterhorn adventure began in Austria in July 1991. Every other summer my family together with neighbors traveled to the Austrian Alps. Our paradise is a little village called Fulpmes in a valley called Stubaital about 15 kilometers south of Innsbruck. Our main activity, apart from eating well and drinking a lot of beer, is day tours to various alpine meadows.

Now and then I joined Sepp Rettenbacher, who runs a mountain climbing and ski school in Stubaital, on various climbs in the valley, a number of which are more than 3500 meters over sea level.

When younger, climbing was a lot of fun, particularly non-technical climbing. Challenging walk-ups in other words. For me, 3500 meters was a good climb. I’d been over 4000 meters before when I lived in California.

I could have been quite content with the climbs in Stubaital if it weren’t for the enormous German in our climbing group who huffed and puffed his way up to the top. “Geez,” I said to myself, “if that pork barrel can make it to 3500 meters, then I should be able to make it to at least 4500 meters.”

“This is a good place to practice,” I said to Sepp, sounding a little cocky. “Where is the real thing around here? The big challenge?”

“The Matterhorn,” responded Sepp. “The Matterhorn,” I mumbled to myself. I had seen that mountain many times – in Disneyland – but never ‘live’.

“That’s the real thing, isn’t it?” I said to Sepp. “You betcha,” he answered. “What the hell. Give it a whirl!” I said.

When we came back to Sepp’s house he gave me more information on what the whole adventure would involve as well as ensured me that I was in good enough condition to haul my pot belly up to the top. Then he showed me a dramatic picture of the Matterhorn.

“Judas Priest,” I said to myself. Now I understood that the discussion had proceeded to the point at which I couldn’t say no without losing face.

Sepp told me that the best age for climbing is between 30 and 40 years old. I told him I was almost 53. “That’s close enough,” he said with a hearty laugh.

Of course, such a venture requires reasonably good physical condition, and if you have a little climbing experience and a good guide like Sepp and a little luck with the weather, it’s worth giving it a go.

Between the month when we returned from Austria and day M, as in Matterhorn, I jogged regularly. Those who jog know that after a while your breathing gets into a rhythm. Mine was Mat-ter-horn, Mat-ter-horn, Mat-ter-horn while I jogged through the woods in Säffle.

Only a third of those who start out to reach the top of the Matterhorn get there. On the other hand, a number of climbers with artificial legs, a blind man and even a number of 70 to 90 year olds have met the challenge. The mountain is 4,478 meters or 14,692 feet over sea level.

During the afternoon before day M, Sepp and I wandered up to the Hörnlihütte at 3260 meters. This is where all of the climbers spend the night before they attempt the summit. From here the Matterhorn appeared somewhat compact. From Zermat below, it appeared threatening.

The activity was frantic in the hütte the night before the climb. After a dinner together, everyone packed their backpack and positioned it ready to go the next morning.

Everyone went to bed rather early. I didn’t sleep especially well during those few hours between sliding into my sleeping bag and being awakened at 4 o’clock. We got dressed quickly, ate breakfast and at 4.30 we were on our way toward the top.

You’re not allowed to climb the Matterhorn without a certified guide. Sepp and I climbed together with a friend of his we met by chance at Hörnlihütte. He guided a very energetic German lady who was on the mountain for the second time.

Get this! On her first climb she broke her leg at the top, and she descended to the bottom in spite of the problem. No helicopter rescue for her!

Before beginning the upward tramp, Sepp attached a rope to himself and then to me so he could save me if I fell. Then we put on our headlamps and went on our way.

Our route up is the Hörnli ridge that separates the North face from the East face, the same route Whymper took in 1865. Today it’s referred to as the tourist route. Ahead of us we could see the glow of the headlamps of the earlier starters winding their way up the mountain.

At about six o’clock we could see the sun rising above the mountaintops across the valley. A short while later we arrived at a little hut called Solvayhütte at 4003 meters.

After a short rest, Sepp and I and our fellow climbers continued up – and I mean up – most often at a 45 degree grade, and sometimes straight up, with the help of fixed ropes. They, of course, were helpful. Without them, we would have had to fix our own ropes.

I can add that without Sepp I would have lost the way in less than 20 seconds. The route is no obvious superhighway. We climbed a bit more intensively after Solvayhütte, which is only 475 meters from the top, nonetheless, a very long 475 meters.

At a few places, we climbed along the edge of the Hörnli ridge with the North face below us. A quick look over the edge revealed that with one false step I would be airborne.

A short way from the top we stopped because we had encountered ice. Sepp clamped on his hypermodern crampons to his hypermodern boots. I fasten my crampons purchased in 1974 for a climb in the Cascades of Oregon.

“Which museum did you rob to get your equipment,” said Sepp with a chuckle.

Four hours and fifteen minutes after we left Hörnlihütte we were standing beside the statue of St. Bernard at the top. From this position at 4478 meters, and as the Patron Saint of Alpinists, he protects climbers ascending from the Swiss side.

According to Sepp, the Italians are planning to build a lift to the top of Monte Cervino, the Italian name for the Matterhorn. It remains to be seen if they are going to erect a statue of the patron saint of lift riders at the top on their side.

Patron saints and Italians aside, we were at the top, and what a wonderful feeling this was. A few clouds accented a wonderfully blue sky. Sepp shook my hand and congratulated me. Our German friend took out her flask of schnapps from which each of us took a taste and said, “Berg Heil!” We then ate lunch and enjoyed our triumph. And I drank the rest of the two liters of water I had carried with me, a move I was to regret later.

Soon Sepp got up and pointed out that it was just far down to Hörnlihütte as it was up to the top. But at least we would be going downward, I thought to myself.

At the top it’s steep, allowing rappelling, a technique that involves hopping down on a fixed rope. I had done this in California. It’s fun and an easy and quick way down. Down would be a piece of cake, again thinking to myself. At least it was while rappelling the first third of the way down.

The final two-thirds of the way down were another story. It didn’t take long before I remembered descending into the Grand Canyon. At the bottom I was so physically destroyed that I hoped that I’d never have to hike downward again. Given the choice, I’ll opt for upward every time.

Now I was in the exact same situation, except in the Grand Canyon I had water. The air at 4000 meters is thin and dry. And I sweat in profuse quantities. Nine hours after we started our climb, we were back at Hörnlihütte, and I was totally dehydrated. Gone. Finished. Finito. Now I was paying for that last sip of water at the top.

Water is the only thing that was of interest for me at that point. But at Hörnlihütte the only natural water comes from melted glacial ice. Otherwise water is transported up the mountain and sold in plastic bottles.

I stood in a queue, a very long one, to purchase the bottled variety. And I was desperate. I thought should I elbow my way to the front or wait my turn? The answer came from my stomach. “Go forward as quickly and discreetly as possible,” it told me, “and be sure to vomit.” I obeyed. And I got what I so desperately needed.

Half recovered, I stumbled into the Hörnlihütte and offered my climbing friends a drink. “Water,” they said, “fish do horrible things in it,” they exclaimed looking as if they hadn’t done anything more exhausting that day then lift a beer or two to their lips, which, of course they were doing that moment.

“If you don’t want to stay here at Hörnlihütte tonight, we have a room at a hotel in Zermat. What do you say?” said Sepp.

“What do you think,” I said.

That evening, on the way to the restaurant, Sepp pointed at the Matterhorn and said, “Look at it.” To which I replied, “Forget it. I’ve been there.”

A friend of mine asked me what inspired me to climb mountains. Enormous Germans? Perhaps. Otherwise I find training and preparing for a climb and then succeeding at doing it rewarding.

“Because it’s there,” was “George Mallory’s answer to the same question when the British mountaineer was asked why he wanted to climb Everest.

What’s next?

Now when I jog in the woods the rhythm of my breathing says Kili-man-jaro. Who knows?