One of the most prominent peaks in Europe is the Matterhorn. Most everyone I have known that is into mountaineering knows about the Matterhorn. Most people in Europe have heard of the Matterhorn's mystique, challenge, and prominence. The locals can’t view the sky without seeing the Matterhorn's dominating presence.
Indeed, it’s quite the site to see from below as well as when you are climbing the mountain, but what you may not see from the distance is the herd of people that attempt to summit the peak.
Watching the Matterhorn throughout the previous week on the Gorner glacier was like starring at a beacon. The mountain was calling me in a dream state reality. The gravity would pull my eyes towards the peak on an hourly basis.
I even woke up at 4am to see the peak at night with the stars still out and the moon casting a contrasting hue onto the texture of the horn. It was a uniquely interesting in-itself. The darkness of a triangular void stood presently, and somewhat eerie forefronting the starlit sky.
Now if you know a bit more about mountaineering, you will understand the idea of an alpine start. Starting at 3 am people make their way up the mountain to have the best conditions and the right amount of time to avoid weather. The same goes for the Matterhorn. From where my campsite was on the glacier, I could see a “glow worm “of lights from the Hornli hut, going up halfway to the top!!!
No doubt, the crumbly nature of this peak and the unseasonably warm conditions that this peak has resided with made climbing the mountain, “Particularly dangerous” at least that was according to the local Swiss Heli-SAR we were working with at the time. One operator mentioned that they were picking people off the peak and/or addressing injuries on a daily basis. Injuries were occurring at numbers they haven’t seen in a long time. The allure of this mountaineers Mecca is real and so is the risk to injury.
I was able to get a couple warm up peaks including the Breithorn and the Oterrothorn before my friend Chris McMahan showed up to Zermatt. Hiking up these peaks gave me a sense of the weather, a bit more acclimation, and a means to observe the behavior that weather has at elevation and how the Matterhorn was behaving. The previous week, the weather had clear skies, warm, and little snow on the mountain. As the days went by, the weather started to turn against us. Rain, snow, and clouds cover turned the seemingly high angle faces of the Matterhorn into a snow-covered mountain.
The following day Chris picked me up from my Airbnb and we headed to the train station to park. We went to Zermatt and started our hike to the Hornli hut. We stopped by at the guide service center, and they said that no guides went today but they are sending either "experienced guides" up tomorrow to summit the following day. A few experienced guides might attempt tomorrow.
We are right in the window of a “GO/NO-GO” condition, and we only have 1 day to make our attempt. (Mistake 1) We hike to the gondola that will take us to the high point called Schwarzsee. From there we have to gain another 2200 ft to get to the Hornli hut which is at the base of the Matterhorn at 10800 ft. We hike this trail and day hikers are coming down from the peak in herds. Notably so as the last ride to Zermatt is at 4:30 pm. After a couple hours Chris and I make it to the world famous Hornli hut. There is an outside patio that looks fairly new. You walk across this patio to enter the building with a mess hall for dinner and a registration center is found.
Our reservation is under our friend Daniel Martin. Daniel was not able to make it due to an injury, so we finalized the registration and realized that it was mandatory to have sleeping bag liners. We ended up purchasing these sleeping bag liners. These are considered a layer of protection, so people do not spread bed bugs or other nocturnal emissions on the bed. These not so fitted liners and did not actually accommodate the blanket and pillows they provided. (NOTE: you do NOT need to bring a sleeping bag, sleeping pad, or pillows to the hut.)
You do not need to bring water for the climb. You can purchase water at the hut for the climn. you will pay 15-20 dollars for 3 liters of water but if you made this far, you should be able to afford it for this occurrence. After checking in and settling down in our three-person bunk hostel we walk around outside to where the climb starts. There are fixed lines with large ropes fixed into the rock. The peak is encased with clouds as the sun struggles to penetrate through. Faint sounds of helicopters look in the air and snow cover start only 500 ft of elevation above us. We walk through the mess hall and sit down as we mingle with the other climbers in the room. There must be over 100 people here. A few are just staying overnight to hike down and some are attempting the summit. We notice guides dressed to perfection with their outstanding outfits and rhetoric.
Their group of 3-10 people surround them as they listen to their plan. One climber walks up to us and asks if we have a connection cable for her light, Chris looks back in the room as I ask, “was your light turned on by accident in your pack”.? She replied, “no I just came from summiting K2 and my battery is dead”. My curiosity peaked! “Wow, tell me about that experience of summiting K2, what was it like”? She explained that it took her and the guide service that was hired, 5 weeks to summit. “The unguided team unfortunately was killed. Our team was not sure if we could make it either, but we did it.” Wow, follow up questions were met with the resonance that the previous answer had. I later found out that she is one of the first female K2 summit expedition leaders to successfully execute a K2 summit. We met a few other people including two guys from Tahoe that came out just for this summit. They have been at the hut for a week waiting for the window of opportunity to open up. Tomorrow is they last day for them so they are going to give it a go whatever the conditions might be. The guides are considering heading up with their clients tomorrow morning at 4am.
I noticed that not only did the locals, the guide service, and the guides recommend being guided, most people were going with a guide service. There appeared to be only 4-5 groups (including us) that were unguided. We headed to bed and had a third person in our bunk room, a French guy attempting the summit solo. We got the last few glimpses of the mountain and the clouds cleared as the sun crested over the summit and the temperature plummeted.
Chris and I went to bed which was more like laying down than getting sleep. Our blood pressure was slightly elevated due to the elevation and not being acclimated to 10800 ft. Throughout the night the temps drop just below freezing icing over any snow melt that was occurring the day before. 4am coming seemingly a minute later, alarms go off, and feet start to rumble.
I wake up and throw my clothing on as we both get downstairs to eat breakfast. People are all over the place. Guides and people are coiling rope around themselves, and their clients clip in. There must be over 70 people starting their way up the ridge. The requirement was that the guides go first with their clients, then everyone else gets the opportunity to go. This meant that we are in the back of the line. Finally, just about everyone left and Chris and I set out for the first obstacle. We were greeted by a line of over 20-30 people waiting to bypass the first 5th class scramble. “Man, this is not what I was expecting and not how I like to experience mountaineering”. We looked around the corner and we could see a line of lights heading up the ridge. I got that same feeling I get when I look at a photo of a long line of people attempting to summit Everest. This roller coaster was moving a lot slower than the Matterhorn ride at Disneyworld.
There is a bit of serenity I find in mountaineering where there is solitude or small sporadic groups throughout the route. This reminded me of half dome in Yosemite. Finally, it was our turn to start. Chris and I are roped up together and there's a couple ahead of us. The first of the two climbs up and the second is having some tough challenges getting over this first scramble. Chris and I kept hearing her say “chunka chunka”, at times with a bit of concern in her voice.
It was at that point I looked at Chris with concern and realized that this is going to take a really long time!!! “ chunka”!!! Echos as rocks fall next to us. (Mistake 2) don’t be absolutely last! try to get right behind the last guide at all costs. It was very difficult to pass people. Finally, we are clear to climb, and we start our way up the Matterhorn, the rock is all icy and crumbly. We scale around the first 5th class route and head up this scree pile passing 3rd and 4th class scrambling as the blue hour of sun starts to emit. We can see all the non-guided groups scattered throughout the 1/3 to the middle of the route near the high hut. People were everywhere and so were the sounds of rock fall. Crumbling rock with kicks from people's movement and the thaw of ice and snow melt started rain rocks down below. We got to the next 5th class route and again we were bottle necked we are about a third of the way up to the summit. We can see the high hut fairly close as well as Over 30 people climbing and scratching their way up the peak. Chris and I sit down and have a chat about this situation.
We are a bit more than a 1/3rd of the way up. People are going in all different directions, rocks are falling everywhere, there is snow melting throughout the face, this is not the mountaineering experience I am looking for with all of these people. Chris agreed that this is not a great experience as it was more like small township of people climbing to the top. We are behind people that are going very slow, and we are quickly running out of time before the afternoon heavy rockfall comes into play. Knowing the snow melt would loosen the rock more and we still had a lot of time in the day, we bailed and headed to Ticino. We could have continued to push but at the pace we were behind, we would have made it to the high hut before the risk would have become too great to continue, so a summit was out of the question. We did salvage the day with a beautiful c class canyon in Ticino.
To me, mountaineering is the experience of connecting into the mountain, the intention to summit safely, the experience with the team, and respecting the mountain. None of this was there for us and as summit fever and regret set in, I reminded myself why I enjoy mountaineering.
The challenges and the time it takes to summit is not always a one-day occurrence. If we had more time, we could have made another attempt the following day. If we got right behind a guide and not others with unknown skill sets, there could have been a better chance. The culmination of crumbly rock in snowmelt and rock fall added to the decision to leave as it was passing our threshold. For the weeks previous, people were getting injured every day on the horn due to the unseasonable conditions and resulting rock fall.
It wasn’t worth the risk and starting the world class canyoning portion of the trip was started a day earlier. For what it’s worth, not all mountains require a summit. Not only you can go back and give it another go but for the Matterhorn, I will rather go somewhere else.
As much as I respect the legacy of the Matterhorn, the Hornli Hut, the people that manage the mountain, and the climbers who make the attempt, I found that there were way too many people going up. Part of this was our fault with not being ambitious enough to get right behind the guides. The rockfall is a concern but if we were further ahead, I believe we would have encountered less rock fall and fuckery from the groups below. I also think if we gave it a few more days and "learned" that people and the route a bit more we would have made it. Ticino was calling our names for us to give it another shot. Monte Rosa or Monte Blanc would be summits I would rather visit.
The Matterhorn is a worthy climb and a worthy place to make the attempt. People from around the world come to the Matterhorn to put hands and feet on its ridge and it was an honor to do so. I do recommend getting in your Matterhorn experience and I want that experience to be better for you and successful, even include the summit. I do also see the value of hiring a guide as it will get you first in line and have a pathway to follow. Even hiking to the Hut is worth the hike to stay one night. I will never forget the experience and I am not only glad I got to experience it with a friend, but we got to get a beautiful canyon complete right as the sunset, fair trade.
|
|
|
|
|
|
