50 Fun Facts About The Matterhorn

On the border of which two countries does the Matterhorn stand?

Three of its four faces are on the Swiss side; only the south face lies in Italy.

How high is the Matterhorn's summit?

That is 14,692 feet, making it the sixth-highest Alpine summit with at least 300 metres of prominence.

Which Swiss town lies at the foot of the Matterhorn to the northeast?

It is almost entirely free of petrol and diesel vehicles and can be reached only by public transport.

Which Italian resort town sits below the Matterhorn's south face?

A cable-car link between the Swiss and Italian sides finally opened in 2023.

In which Swiss canton is the Matterhorn?

It is the canton's fifth-highest summit, behind the Dom, Liskamm, Weisshorn and Monte Rosa.

How many faces does the Matterhorn have?

Each roughly points to a cardinal direction, and the north and south faces are wider than the east and west.

Which ridge is the Italian normal route to the summit?

It runs between the south and west faces; the other ridges are the Hörnli, Zmutt and Furggen.

By what nickname, translated from German, is the Matterhorn sometimes known?

Berg der Berge is also claimed to be the most photographed mountain in the world.

What do the German words behind the name Matterhorn mean?

It is often translated as the peak of the meadows.

What is the Italian name for the Matterhorn?

It comes via the French Cervin from the Latin Mons Silvanus, meaning forest mountain, not from cervo, deer.

Which Genevan geologist first measured the Matterhorn's height in 1792?

He used a sextant and a 50-foot chain laid out on the Theodul glacier.

Roughly how many alpinists are estimated to have died on the Matterhorn?

That makes it one of the deadliest peaks in the world.

The gneiss of the Matterhorn's summit was originally part of which continent's crust?

That is why it has been popularised as an African mountain, unlike neighbouring Monte Rosa, whose rocks stayed in Laurasia.

What process gave the Matterhorn its pyramidal shape?

Multiple glaciers carved away at the peak from different sides over the past million years.

Which pass just east of the Matterhorn has been a trade route since Roman times?

Ski lifts now link Zermatt and Breuil-Cervinia across it all year round.

Who led the party that made the first ascent of the Matterhorn in 1865?

It was his eighth attempt; he had failed seven times, mostly from the Italian side.

On what date did the first ascent of the Matterhorn take place?

It is considered the last ascent of the golden age of alpinism.

How many of the seven climbers in Whymper's party died on the descent?

Hadow, Croz, Hudson and Lord Francis Douglas fell to the Matterhorn Glacier; Douglas's body was never found.

Which French guide, one of the most famous of his day, died in the 1865 Matterhorn disaster?

He is buried in the Zermatt churchyard along with Hudson and Hadow.

Which member of the 1865 party's body was never found?

He was a Scottish mountaineer whom Whymper had met on the way to Zermatt.

What did Whymper discover about the rope that broke between Douglas and the elder Taugwalder?

Taugwalder was accused of cutting it to save himself and his son, but the inquest found no proof.

How many days after Whymper did Jean-Antoine Carrel reach the summit from the Italian side?

He and Jean-Baptiste Bich proved on 17 July 1865 that the Italian ridge was not unconquerable.

By which route did Whymper's party climb the Matterhorn in 1865?

Whymper found it much easier than the Italian ridge, and it remains the normal route today.

The Matterhorn's shoulder at 4,248 m was named after which physicist, who reached it as a client in 1862?

The physicist got there with the guides Jean-Antoine and César Carrel and Johann Joseph Bennen.

Who became the first woman to reach the summit of the Matterhorn, in 1871, wearing a white print dress?

Her rival Meta Brevoort followed a few weeks later.

Which climber, with Alexander Burgener, made the first ascent of the Zmutt ridge in 1879?

Guidebook writer Collomb calls the Zmutt the classic route, the longest and most disjointed ridge.

In which year was the Matterhorn's north face first climbed?

It is one of the three great north faces of the Alps, known as the Trilogy with the Eiger and Grandes Jorasses.

How did the brothers Franz and Toni Schmid travel to and from their 1931 first ascent of the north face?

They kept their plans secret, so the ascent was a complete surprise.

Which Italian climber soloed the North Face Direct in February 1965?

His route was not repeated solo for 29 years, until Catherine Destivelle in 1994.

How fast did Ueli Steck climb the north face by the Schmid route in 2009?

Kilian Jornet took the same 1 hour 56 minutes to run from Breuil-Cervinia to the summit in 2013.

Which of the Matterhorn's faces is the highest, at 1,400 metres, and was completely climbed only in 1962?

It has the fewest routes and lies in the most remote area.

At what altitude is the Hörnli Hut, the starting point of the normal route?

Climbers rise at 3:30 am to summit and descend before the regular afternoon storms.

At what altitude is the emergency-only hut high on the normal route?

A 2021 attraction at the Swiss Museum of Transport lets visitors climb virtually from there to the summit.

In which year did the first train reach the village below the Matterhorn?

Construction of the line from Visp began in 1888, and the whole line was electrified in 1930.

To what record altitude does the Gornergrat railway, opened in 1898, climb?

From there the east face of the Matterhorn and the Monte Rosa massif are in full view.

What is the Klein Matterhorn's claim to fame?

Its cable car reaches 3,883 metres, and since 2023 links onward to Testa Grigia on the Italian side.

What opened in 2023 to connect the Swiss and Italian resort towns directly for the first time?

It runs via the Klein Matterhorn and Testa Grigia.

How long is the trekking circuit around the Matterhorn?

It crosses six valleys and three cultures: German-speaking Valais, French-speaking Valais and the bilingual Aosta Valley.

Which Swiss chocolate bar's triangular shape was inspired by the Matterhorn?

The mountain first appeared on its packaging in 1960, though poster artist Emil Cardinaux had drawn one for the brand in the 1920s.

In which year did the mountain's image first appear on the triangular chocolate bar it inspired?

Since then the peak has been used endlessly in advertising and graphic design.

The Matterhorn Bobsleds ride at Disneyland was the first permanent example of what?

Built by Arrow Development, it opened on 14 June 1959 and uses forced perspective to look bigger than it is.

Which Italian engineer measured the Matterhorn at 4,505 metres in 1868 with a mercury barometer?

He had hired Carrel as guide in 1865, fearing the arrival of "that fellow whose life seems to depend on the Matterhorn", Whymper.

Since which year has the Matterhorn been part of the Swiss Federal Inventory of Natural Monuments?

The glaciated Dent Blanche–Matterhorn–Monte Rosa region is listed as a whole.

In which year did Disneyland's Matterhorn Bobsleds ride open?

It opened alongside the Monorail and Submarine Voyage as part of a Tomorrowland expansion, built by Arrow Development.

Which nearby peak, the second-highest in the Alps at 4,634 m, overtops the Matterhorn?

On the Swiss side the Matterhorn is just one of many 4,000-metre summits of the Mattertal, and four of them are taller.

What job first brought Edward Whymper to the Matterhorn region in the summer of 1860?

He was an engraver by trade, and the unclimbed mountain's mixed reputation among British climbers only fascinated him more.

Walt Disney's idea for a Matterhorn ride grew from a Swiss vacation while filming which movie?

Inspired, he grabbed a postcard of the mountain from a souvenir stand and mailed it back to Imagineer Vic Greene.

Which Ecuadorian volcano did Whymper make the first ascent of in 1880?

Alexander von Humboldt had climbed on the mountain in 1802 without reaching the top; Whymper's guide was Jean-Antoine Carrel.

Which of the Matterhorn's four ridges was the last to be climbed in full, in September 1941?

A 1911 party had bypassed its overhangs near the top; Alfredo Perino and guides finally climbed them during the Second World War.

Who made the first winter ascent of the Hörnli ridge, on 17 March 1882?

He climbed with three members of the Carrel guiding family; the ridge's first solo ascent followed in 1898.