July 14, 2015 - To celebrate today’s 150th anniversary of
the Matterhorn’s first ascent, we present 10 fun facts about Europe’s most
famous summit.
1. At 4,478 meters (14,692 feet), the Matterhorn is only
Western Europe’s 12th-highest peak, but it is taller than Mt. Whitney, the
highest summit in the Lower 48 of the U.S., by about 187 feet.
2. The Matterhorn straddles two countries, Switzerland and
Italy, and has three common names. The German name Matterhorn derives from the
words for "meadow" and "peak." The Italian name (Cervino)
and French (Cervin) likely originated with the Latin word for forest, silva,
though some believe it comes from the Italian and French words for “deer.”
3. The first ascent on July 14, 1865, from the Swiss side
of the mountain, ended a race that lasted nearly a decade and came down to the
wire, with rivals on the Italian side poised only 1,250 feet below the top when
Edward Whymper and Michel Croz first reached the summit. In order to ensure his
rivals knew they were beaten, Whymper rather unsportingly shouted at the
Italian team from the top and hurled rocks to make a clatter. “The Italians
turned and fled,” Whymper wrote in his famed book Scrambles Amongst
the Alps.
4. The glorious victory was marred when, during the
descent, four of the seven climbers in the summit party fell to their deaths.
The remaining three, including Whymper, likely would have fallen as well if the
rope linking the men had not broken.
5. The second route up the Matterhorn, the Lion Ridge
from Italy, was completed just three days after the first, on July 17,
1865.
6. Since the first ascent, more than 500 people have died
while climbing or descending the Matterhorn—an average of three to four per
year.
7. About 3,000 people summit the Matterhorn annually.
However, starting this year, by reducing the size of the hut at the base of the
most popular route, the Hörnli Ridge, and eliminating camping outside the hut,
Swiss officials hope to slash the number of climbers by as much as
one-third and reduce crowding on the mountain. About 80 percent of
Matterhorn climbers are either guides or clients.
8. Both a railway and a cable car to the summit of the
Matterhorn have been proposed. The latter, a tramway from the Italian town
of Breuil-Cervinia, was proposed in 1950 but scuttled after tens of
thousands of people protested to the Italian government.
9. Emil Cardinaux’s striking poster of the Matterhorn
(shown above), designed as a card in 1903 and printed as a tourism poster for
Zermatt in 1908, is considered the first modern travel poster and a landmark of
20th-century design.
10. The mountain is closed to all climbing today (July 14,
2015), out of respect for those who have died on the peak.
climbing.com
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