Zermatt celebrates centenary of Matterhorn's first climb: from the archive, 17 July 1965
It is by nothing more than an accident that Zermatt's festivities this week have been attached to the name of Edward Whymper. Because he was the first man to climb the Matterhorn a hundred years ago on Wednesday, they have pegged their jollifications to that event. But essentially they have been celebrating their local benefactor.
Without the Matterhorn there would be no Zermatt as we know it today. There would not be so much varnish and lollipop-coloured paint upon the houses. There would be no Whisky a Gogo, no Elsie's Place to make the English feel dashing and comfortable in turn. It is doubtful whether there would still be so many picturesque stage coaches bowling guests from the railway station to their lodgings. Life in Zermatt would be altogether different and probably a sight duller.
The thousands who come to Zermatt each year do not limit themselves to the Matterhorn. Some of the greatest mountains in Switzerland are scattered around the village and they all get their share of attention. But the Matterhorn's is the lion's share. And the chances are that none of the others would have excited the interest they do if the Matterhorn had not been conquered and if there had not then been that dreadful accident on July 14, 1865. It is true that climbers had been pleasuring themselves in the Alps for some time before Whymper's party got to the top. But this had been a private and clubbable thing to do. Like Scott's journey to the Pole, Whymper's venture was a high achievement capped by disaster. It captured the general imagination and it turned Alpinism into a more public pastime.
The Matterhorn is without a peer around Zermatt, though this has nothing to do with height. At 14,782ft it is lower than its neighbours Monte Rosa and Lyskamm. But as no competitor does, it dominates the horizon. There never was a more shapely mountain. It is a slim pyramid of rock which soars straight into the sky, and is operatic in its grandeur.
Along the ridge route that Whymper took there is little that a good climber in condition cannot tackle with confidence. The guides have even strung the most difficult bit near the top with fixed ropes to give everyone a hand. One day last year 175 people were to be observed testing themselves on the mountain. But a man has to be in condition to do this, for the altitude will turn his lungs into a furnace, the steepness will make his legs indiarubber, and if he slips without a rope to hold him he slips a very long way.
The Matterhorn must be in trim too. There are times even in high summer when snow and ice mean that none but the most brilliant can hope to get very far up Whymper's route. There are other places on the mountain where only the best would dream of going at any time. A few months ago a man called Bonatti climbed the north-west face by himself. It took him four days and it had never been done before.
Zermatt wears a happy-go-lucky, bank holiday air at the height of the summer season, but there are two places in it which bring you up with a jolt. The first is the cemetery, which is populated for the most part by those who have come to a quiet end in the valley. But among those graves are many others of people whose deathbed has been the glacier beneath the mountain. There are rough slabs of rock for local guides, with a photograph on them and a miniature ice-axe and rope cast in bronze or silver. There are more impersonal blocks of marble with nothing but an inscription… to three friends from Oxford here, to three other friends from Cambridge there, to a solitary from Hertfordshire who perished in a snowstorm on the mountain. And in one corner are three very special tombstones, to Michel Cron, to the Rev. Charles Hudson, and to Douglas Hadow, who went out with Whymper and whose rope broke on the way back. They cannot decorate Lord Francis Douglas's grave, because he is still somewhere in the glacier.
The other place is the museum. There is a room in it devoted to the relics of the first climb. Hadow's boot is there, the boot which may have been the cause of the accident; the sole is half torn off and it does not look as if it had ever been nailed decently. And then there is the rope that broke, perhaps ten feet of it in a neat bundle. One end has been cut, the other is a raggle of frayed strands. It is a ridiculous thing to find in a mountaineering museum, thin and hopeless. You might hang your washing on it but no man in his senses would put his life on it - much less four men's lives - at 14,000ft.
In Zermatt this week, however, they have not cared to dwell much on fatality, and in this they have shown a proper sense of occasion. For the Matterhorn has been a tower of strength to them. So the emphasis has been on the camaraderie, the invigoration, and the smooth well-being of the mountain life. They have recruited guests of honour from all over the world to share this feeling. The streets have been shown, a memorial service has been held. There has been the first performance of an Alpine symphony, poetry has been declaimed by imported actors, films have been shown, a memorial service has been held, and the shops have been plundered of their boots by Bally, their cameras by Hasselblad, their sweaters by Hardy Amies. There have been speeches galore. There has not, though, been much climbing.
All this has sprung from that mountain which has glittered like a great jewel above the village all week, benefactor, tower of strength, trinket of incalculable value - the Matterhorn has been all these things to Zermatt. The stranger in the village finds himself lingering over the awful drama of that first ascent. He would look at it differently if he belonged here. A sensation it undoubtedly was, and it caused a lot of genuine hand wringing. But it was never a tragedy.