Matterhorn Account

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THE MATTERHORN
JULY 1990

     When I told one of the bartenders at a local Sunnyvale bar that I was going to try and climb the Matterhorn she asked "the one in California or the one in Florida?". I had to remind her that the real Matterhorn was in Switzerland not at Disneyland or Disneyworld. Actually the Matterhorn is situated on the Swiss/Italian border with the north, east and west faces in Switzerland and the southern face in Italy. It's summit is 4477.5 meters above sea level which equates to 14,689.9 feet or about two hundred feet higher then Mt. Whitney, which is the highest point in the lower forty eight and also the highest elevation I have climbed to.
     The mountain can be climbed starting from Zermatt in Switzerland on the north or from Breuil in Italy on the south side. The most common and popular route is up from Zermatt which is the route I chose. The route starts at about a mile high in Zermatt (5266'). From there aerial tramways can save over three thousand feet of climb by bringing you up to a hotel and restaurant at Schwartzee (8474'). From Schwartzee the trail climbs up several thousand feet to another more Spartan hotel and restaurant at Hornlihutte (10,696'). At Hornlihutte the trail ends and the climb begins in earnest. For the three days I was in the vicinity of Hornlihutte the conditions on the mountain weren't very good and I never attempted the remaining four thousand feet to the summit.
After arriving in Frankfort I picked up my reserved rental car and spent twelve hours driving to within about twenty miles of Zermatt. The Autobahn from Frankfort to Basel, just inside the Swiss border, had very few areas where a speed limit was in effect and travel through the lush, green, rolling country side was quick and mostly uneventful. I was surprised at the border, as with all my border crossings while I was in Europe, that nobody wanted to see a passport. All they wanted was a thirty Swiss Franc ($21) fee to put a sticker on the windshield which enabled me to use the Swiss Autobahns for 1990. At Basel the terrain became somewhat more rugged but tunnels took any real bite out of the road and until reaching Luzern the road remained a fast moving Autobahn. Approaching Luzern reminded me a little of approaching Denver from the east. Suddenly the higher more rugged alps seemed to jump up and dominate the skyline, similar to the way Denver is accented by the jutting Rockies .
     After fruitlessly searching Luzern for camping fuel for my back packing stove, I began the more tedious, but enjoyable, drive through the higher alps. The narrow road started through small scattered lake side villages but eventually climbed over a wooded pass into a beautifully lush alpine valley. Approaching the upper southern end of the valley the trees fell away and the road narrowed drastically as it switch backed through hair pin turns towards a rocky pass. The barren snow capped alps loomed over the road in the twilight as I climbed above the tree line through the seven thousand foot pass. The tree line in the alps is lower than I'm used to seeing in the California Sierras, probably because Switzerland's latitude is higher and is actually closer to that of Mt. Rainier in Washington state.
     The road on the northern side of the pass dropped several thousand feet through even more drastic hair pin turns and switch backs. The road seemed more like a one way, one lane road, than a two way road. Luckily nobody came the opposite direction in the failing light as I tried slowly to negotiate the difficult route. After the pass the route continued south on a long gradual down hill grade through various small villages until it reached the city of Brig and the Rhone River. From Brig the route then followed down the river towards the southwest until it reached Visp, which is where the tributary feeding down from Zermatt in the south reaches the Rhone. At around midnight, on the road from Visp to Zermatt, I called it a day and slept in the car along the roadside.
     All night long there was light traffic heading towards Zermatt and in the morning the narrow two lane road was filled with tour buses, trucks and auto traffic heading up into the higher mountains. The road follows the train route up the river but can only be followed by tourists as far as Tasch which is a few miles short of Zermatt. At Tasch the road ends for all but Zermatt residents who can drive to the edge of Zermatt but not into the village. At Tasch there is a huge parking lot next to the train station where the tour buses and private vehicles must be left at a cost of four Francs ($2.80) a day (for private vehicles). I found the parking fee a lot more reasonable then the eight dollars a day I was paying for long term parking at the San Francisco airport. The electric train from Tasch to Zermatt takes about ten minutes and costs five Francs ($3.50) each way.
     When arriving in Tasch I caught my first glimpse of part of the high snow capped twelve to fifteen thousand foot ridge that marks the Swiss-Italian border. On the train ride I managed to view various sections of the deep snow covered ridge but my ultimate goal, the Matterhorn, never came into view. When I arrived in Zermatt the train station was a bustle of activity with tourists attempting to make lodging accommodations. There is a large board with the names of many of the various local hotels that includes their availability, location, and rates. A free phone is provided for making arrangements and some of the hotels offer transportation by way of horse drawn coaches or small electric vehicles. There are no internal combustion engines allowed in Zermatt. It was early in the afternoon and since I was carrying a tent, I decided to head for the mountain instead of seeking lodgings in the village.
     I headed south on foot, up the main road from the train station, through very heavy crowds of tourist who were browsing the many shops and restaurants along the narrow street. I was carrying a nearly full expedition sized main pack with a summit pack attached to it. I had left some gear such as my climbing rope at the car but was still carrying around fifty or sixty pounds of equipment. I figured if I found somebody to climb with hopefully they would have their own rope. I got some strange looks from the people on the street which I didn't understand at the time. Latter I figured it must have been because most the climbers they saw in the area didn't carry nearly as much gear as I did because they did alpine climbing rather then expedition climbing. In the Zermatt area alpine climbing is fairly safe and easy because there are many fairly high altitude hotels. There are also many huts or shelters in the even higher and more isolated areas.
     I stuck to the street because it was less crowded then the side walks. Every once in a while I had to move aside for a approaching vehicle. The Zermatterhof, about the classiest hotel in town, had a beautiful ornate glass enclosed horse drawn carriage that even included a guy who followed behind to clean up the road apples. The streets were very clean considering the tourists, horses and the fact that once a day they drove the goats down the main street. The only directions I had was to head south on the main street towards Winkelmatten until I came to the aerial tramways that went to Furi and Schwartzee. I stopped at a news stand and bought a topographical map of the area for a ridiculous 21 Francs ($14.70). After passing the Zermatterhof and the typical European, village dominating, church the road narrowed, climbed slightly and changed mostly to quaint wood log residences with brownish gray slate roofs. The road dropped back down to the river where a bridge crossed to the east side and the lift station. The river was very fast and an off white milky color from the glacial runoff feeding down from above.
     The fee to Schwartzee turned out to be Fr 15 ($10.50) one way and Fr 25 ($17.50) for a round trip ticket. At first I thought you got a discount for buying a round trip ticket but latter I found out that everything in the area cost more if you are going up hill then if you are going down hill. I could see their point, if people have to work harder going uphill so do machines. I only bought a one way ticket because I was thinking about walking down the three thousand foot elevation drop on the way back. While crossing the river I finally got my first look at the Matterhorn itself. Well part of it anyway, the upper portion was hidden in the clouds. During the five days I was in the area the whole mountain was only visible on the good part of one day and on the sixth morning when I left. Sometimes the upper few thousand feet were hidden and at others the whole mountain appeared to be missing. Most of the time the mountain took the thin moistened air and made its own swirling clouds to cloak itself.
     The lift from Zermatt to Furi was made up of small constantly moving enclosed gondolas which ran up hill on one side of the towers and down on the other. Each of the gondolas seated four, two facing two on small benches. I managed to squeeze in through the narrow door, while still keeping my pack on, and sit sideways on one of the benches. It sure is an easy and scenic way to gain about seven or eight hundred feet in elevation below the tree line. Along the way there are scattered slate roofed sheds and occasional small hotels and restaurants which featured outdoor patios and balconies which offered spectacular scenic views. The trails which wandered below through the lush green meadows and light forests were filled with day hikers most of which were heading down hill. At Furi I managed to squeeze back out the door without getting caught up by the still slow moving gondola. At the Furi station there are several choices of up hill routes. There is year round skiing on the glaciers in the area and one of the lift choices is the Kleine Matterhorn from where people can if they choose ski down into Italy. The Italian side has lifts that will bring you back up to the ridge so you can ski back into Switzerland. The lift to Schwartzee is a single large car which holds about twenty or thirty people and runs on a schedule. I only had to wait about ten minutes to be on my way up another two thousand feet. They sure make climbing easy and enjoyable in the alps.
     At Schwartzee there are two buildings not including the lift station. One of them is a combination hotel and restaurant with a large open air patio. The weather was starting to turn inclement and no one was sitting out side. It also turned out that there were very few people inside. I stopped in and bought a couple of draft beers for Fr 3.50 ($2.45) each, which I drank while having a cigar on the patio and studying what I could see of the mountain. On a nearby ridge there was a structure that turned out to be the termination for an unused aerial lift. When I got there it looked like it had fallen into disuse or very seldom use. Far off in the distance, several thousand feet higher, there was a reddish white two story building which I correctly assumed was the Hornlihutte. It looked more then the two hours away the sign post said it was. The signs in the mountains and even in the villages show the time to various destinations rather than the distance. Of course if you are going down hill the signs show a shorter time between points then if you are going up hill. I guess it's not easy to measure actual distances in such rugged terrain and even in the villages where they could now use odometers the still keep the old time system.
     As I watched the mountain, the cloud cover would raise and lower slightly. Some times it would lower to the 10,700' Hornlihutte and at others the overcast would raise up around the twelve thousand foot level. Generally the entire sky was becoming threatening and the air had begun to smell of impending rain. The afternoon was beginning to get late and I decided to make a go for the Hornlihutte. Donning my heavy pack I set my first goal as the structure on the nearby ridge. It didn't take long for me to realize that the pack of cigarettes and two cigars I had consumed recently ,after six months of abstinence, had already had an effect on my lungs. That combined with and the fact I had driven a long ways and hadn't completely recovered from jet lag made my progress slower then I had hoped.
     The trail from Schwartzee drops ever so slightly towards a small lake then begins its rise up the mountain. The trail is all in the open above the tree line with short grasses and mountain wild flowers as the only vegetation. By the time I gained the several hundred feet in elevation to the nearby ridge, with the unused tramway structure on it, the vegetation had all but disappeared. The map I had purchased in the village labeled the area as Hirli but as far as I could tell there was nothing there except the one structure. At the top of the ridge I took a break for a little bite to eat and studied the moraine leading off towards the Furgg Glacier which lies below the east face of the mountain. There was a ridge of moraine which ran quite a ways out past the middle of the glacier towards the Frugghorn. I was thinking about heading out that way if I got a chance because it looked as if I could go a long ways out without worrying about crevasses.
From Hirli the trail followed up along the base of a cliff partly by the means of a combination of metal stairs and cat walk type gratings. Steel I beams had been set horizontally into the cliff and a frame paralleling the cliff had been constructed. Some of the cat walk and at least one of the stair risers had been damaged by rock avalanches but the route was still easily passable. There were two sections of these elevated pathways separated by a considerable length of normal trail. The lower section was mostly stairs where the upper stretch was a inclined cat walk. Underneath one of the newer steel sections there was a crude wooden ladder that must have been used at some time in the past. At the end of the upper section there was a rock overhang which caused me to have to get down on my hands and knees in order to clear it with my high pack on.
     After clearing the upper cat walk the sky finally decided to open up on me. I was too lazy to take my pack off and dig in it for rain protection so I just tried to ignore the light rain. The wind had picked up slightly and the occasional scattered patches of sunlight had disappeared. Luckily the shower didn't last too long, just long enough to get me wet, chill me somewhat, and make my life just a little more miserable. While hiking up I would stop occasionally to try and talk to people who were coming back down from day hikes to the Hornlihutte. Some spoke little or no English but I did run into some Americans. One guy, who was with his wife or girl friend, had been planning on climbing the next day but had changed his mind after checking out the conditions. The guy had met someone in Zermatt he had been planning on climbing with and was pretty sure his new acquaintance would still want to make an attempt. I told him I would be at the Hornlihutte and would be happy to have someone to climb with.
     Everyone I managed to talk with said it was too early in the season for a summit attempt. The conditions were not very good because there was still too much snow and ice still on the higher parts of the mountain. When I had last climbed Mt. Rainier it was supposedly too late in the season. We had been lucky there was still a snow bridge over the huge crevasse (bergschrund) at the top of the Emmons glacier. From what I could tell no one had made the top of the Matterhorn yet that season and one had died trying. Latter I heard that about twelve people a year die on the Matterhorn, which is rather a high number in my book. Only three died on Rainier the year I made the summit and that was an unusually high number for Rainier.
I had been hiking for about three hours, and making disappointedly slow progress, when a second storm came up. The air seemed alive with energy from the nearby lightening strikes. Luckily most of the strikes were up higher on the mountain and there was a somewhat sheltering ridge nearby. I decided I was tired of getting wet and since I had extra days to kill I began to look for a place to set up my tent and get out of the rain. There weren't many spots that were even close to level but I managed to spy one down several hundred yards from the trail. It had a run off pool, a small stream exiting the pool, and a sandy looking area. I studied it from a distance but finally I decided I didn't want to give up that much altitude. I continued up the trail in the rain for a little while until I decided to try and set up in the rocks next to the trail.
     I ditched my pack, covered it with a tarp, and wandered around unencumbered looking for an appropriate spot to set up a camp. The rock in the area was a thin brownish shale of which much of had been tilted to a mostly vertical plane. The rock had been weathered so that edges were not too sharp but they still didn't look very comfortable. Down a hundred yards from the trail there was a shallow bowl whose down hill lip contained a decent sized snow bank. The area of the bowl was fairly flat and composed of small pieces of broken up shale laying mostly in a more comfortable looking horizontal plane. The shale deposits turned out to be several feet deep, which allowed for tent stakes, so this is where I pitched my tent. The rain had stopped but I soon discovered that neither my expedition nor summit pack were water proof. Some of my gear had gotten a little wet but nothing serious.
After I got my camp set up it decided to rain on me for the third time that afternoon. I didn't bother trying to catch any rain water because I was sitting right next to a snow bank which served as my water source and also acted as my refrigerator. I had nothing that would spoil but things like instant milk taste more palatable as it becomes colder. Actually even cold I don't like instant milk but it tastes all right when used for instant breakfast or instant pudding. That evening I melted three quarts of water, from the snow bank, with the new butane stove I had bought in Luzern. The store I bought the stove at sold the whisper lite stove, which I was originally carrying from the States, but not the fuel. I really didn't want a fourth back packing stove but I had little choice in the matter. You have to be able to melt snow when it's necessary. You can live without hot food but not without water.
     The next morning the Matterhorn, to the nearby southwest, appeared as it had for most of the previous day. It was shrouded in pale gray clouds above the eleven or twelve thousand foot level. My camp sat on a ridge at about 9500' and I had a beautiful view of the Matterhorn Glacier at foot of the north face. I also had a view of the Hornlihutte which sat on a nearby ridge around a thousand feet above my camp. I could see some snow on the upper switch backs of the trail leading up to it. Almost due north of me, across the Zmuttbach River valley, was the Gabelhorn. Actually there are three Gabelhorns, the Unter (under), the Mittler (middle), and the Ober (over). The fairly nearby summit of the Ober Gabelhorn, at about 13,329', dominated the northern skyline along with the 14,293' Dent Blanche and the 13,850', thorn sharp, Zinalrothorn. The ridge I was on the side of blocked my view to the south and east.
I decided against making a summit attempt on my second day because of the clouds on the mountain. Since I wasn't sure of the established routes I wanted at least to spend some time studying a clear summit before I attempted it. There is a rather major several hundred foot high ice cliff on the Matterhorn Glacier at about the same elevation as the Hornlihutte. Below the upper ice cliff there is a smaller cliff which falls to the foot of the glacier and has an interesting looking ice cave in it. Although I had an ice axe and crampons I didn't feel like climbing on the crevassed glacier without a rope partner. Instead of continuing up the trail to the Hornlihutte I decided to take a day hike to an ice cave in the foot of the glacier. With the combination of being in no real hurry, not planning on going very far, and only carrying a light summit pack I didn't bother leaving camp until early afternoon. Before I left camp there was a helicopter which hovered close to the mountain just in the lower edge of the clouds. It looked to me like they were looking for somebody or making a rescue attempt.
     From camp it looked like it would be easy to get to the cave. All I had to do was drop about five hundred feet in elevation and take a traverse route for a few miles over some boulder strewn ridges to reach it. The route turned out to be almost that easy except for one uphill stretch over a rugged ridge and the final approach to the cave entrance itself. From my camp it appeared that there was a chute of scree leading up to the cave. When I finally got there it turned out that it was actually solid ice with avalanche dust and small rocks on top of it. I didn't bother putting my crampons on and just took my time. I mostly tried to stay where there was some snow cover to provide better footing. The last fifty feet or so was very icy with my route taking me up a ridge next to a thirty to forty foot ice cliff where an overhang was dripping onto the ice making it even slipperier.
     When I finally reached the mouth of the cave I discovered that it was also part of an arch hanging over a crevasse which disappeared below the lip that formed the bottom of the cave entrance. The hanging ice was rotten and honeycombed with large horizontal air pockets which almost seemed to form ladder like rungs to climb up on. When I had finally gotten to where I could almost see into the cave well enough to see if the floor was solid or not I received a healthy adrenaline rush. While attempting to find a foot hold for my left foot in order to gain a few more precious inches everything below me on my left decided to break off and fall into the crevasse. Luckily I hadn't transferred much of my weight to my left side but after the collapse I was left with only my right foot and hand supporting me on the rotten ice over the crevasse. I thanked which ever deity that was appropriate for the fact that the whole arch hadn't collapsed and got the hell out of there.
     Since there was still plenty of day left I decided to try and climb the fifteen hundred feet up the side of the steep ridge leading to the Hornlihutte. I back tracked past the east edge of the glacier, past a recent ice fall, which had left six foot high ice cubes along the foot of the glacier, and over the boulder strewn ridge I had climbed over to reach the cave. I then climbed the steep snow incline to where a steam was falling to the base of the rocky cliff. From a distance the climb didn't appear like it was too steep but after I began climbing I realized that looks can be deceiving. The rock was in poor condition with many fractured and poorly anchored pieces set in a coarse wet sandy mortar. Climbing proved to be extremely slow and tedious because of the difficulty in locating secure hand and foot holds. Ideally you want four good points to depend on, one for each hand and foot. During the climb sometimes I wasn't sure of even one. Often I would throw loose rocks over my shoulder seeking a good hand hold. I would watch them bounce down the rocky face and out onto the snow below stopping a thousand feet below me.
The climb was extremely frightening mostly because of the poor rock conditions. It reminded me somewhat of the conditions I had found on the side of Steamboat Prow when I had climbed on Mt. Rainier for the second time. The major difference was that the hairy part of that climb only lasted about twenty minutes or so where this one lasted for hours. Many times when I found a fairly secure place I would stop to let my heart slow down. It wasn't beating fast from exertion but rather due to fear. Often during those hours I prayed to a god I didn't believe in, promised to be a better person, and generally wanted to kick myself in the ass for starting the endeavor. Often the only thing that kept me from turning back was that it looked harder to go back down then it was to continue upward. I tried to avoid the area of the falling stream because it was hard enough climbing without dealing with wet rock. Some how I still kept coming back towards the left and the side of the cascade.
      Towards the right there were occasional areas of snow I had planned on using but they turned out to be too shallow to be of much use. All they did was slightly hide the bad rock. If they had been deeper I could have tried to kick step my way upwards instead of staying on the rock. When I Finally reached the top of the rocky cliffs I came upon an area of extremely steep wet snow. I used to say if snow can stick to it so can I but as I was stopped to size up the route a small avalanche came down the chute from above me. I had no choice except to try the snow route which grew steeper until it became vertical with the remains of a small overhanging cornice. I worked my way upwards with the help of my ice axe and by also using my left hand to punch into the soft snow in order to try and give myself a little more of a grip. When I reached the cornice I had to break away the remaining overhang to get over the top. Just over the cornice there was a very noticeable horizontal fracture line in the snow and I didn't feel comfortable until I was on the uphill side of it.
     The snow field above the cornice was still steep but not nearly as steep as the slope below it had been. The snow however was a lot softer and deeper than I had planned on. I began sinking in to mid to upper thigh level and started trying to punch in my knees and walk on my shins in order to stay closer to the surface. Either way I tried it the going was very slow and my ice axe was always buried past the head before it found something solid which was either a layer of ice or rock below. I was carrying water proof clothing but hadn't bothered to put any on. After a short period of time I was pretty much soaked below the waist. To add to my misery it started to rain lightly but I pretty much ignored the added inconvenience. I just wanted to get the climb finished and get off the side of the mountain. From my starting point below, the upper snow field leading to the Hornlihutte ridge had appeared a lot smaller than it turned out to be and I ended up spending several hours negotiating it.
     I began hoping in earnest that I hadn't miscalculated and I would indeed find the hotel/restaurant when I cleared the ridge. As I finally approached the top of the ridge the snow became shallow and then the bad rock under it became a factor again. I was pretty much on my hands and knees clearing away the snow and loose rock, looking for a decent hand hold. When I finally reached a rocky out cropping on the top of the ridge I was extremely happy to see the two story building about fifty feet below the other side. From the rock out cropping there was an easy worn trail in the snow which led down to an area of large flat boulders just behind the structure. By the time I entered the Hotel Belevedere it was almost dark. It had taken me almost four and a half hours to climb around fifteen hundred feet in elevation from the base of the glacier to the Hornlihutte.
     The Hornlihutte contained two adjoining buildings, an outdoor patio, and a outhouse. A plaque claimed the first building had been constructed in 1865. The rates for the hotel seemed to vary from Fr 12 to Fr 22 depending on the time of the year, but being early in the season the rate for the night was Fr 12 including water. The accommodations appeared somewhat austere but the rock and wood buildings appeared sturdy and safe. Earlier in the day I had seen a small helicopter with a cargo net make about a dozen trips to supply the place with provisions and they also had the luxury of electricity supplied by power lines strung up from below. When I entered the small inside dinning area I found the place deserted except for the employees who were in the kitchen eating. The room was small with rough wooden tables and chairs and a small pot bellied stove. I found out the kitchen was closed but I was offered a bowl of soup which I turned down. I also turned down a room for the night and instead elected to get out of my wet clothes and into my gortex/thinsulate coveralls and parka. One reason I didn't want to hang around is that I smelled like shit, literally. Back on the rock cliff I had scared the shit out of myself, again literally. Luckily I had managed to find a precarious spot to relieve myself but unfortunately I found out I wasn't carrying any toilet paper in my summit pack. I just wanted to get back to my camp and clean up.
     The switch backed trail leading back down to my camp was slow going because my bad back and the pinched nerve in my right leg were bothering me pretty severely. I hobbled down through twilight in a light rain generally using my ice axe as a cripples cane. In the twilight there was a rainbow over Schwartzee but Zermatt was hidden by the storm clouds and failing light. It took me an hour and a half to get back to my camp and by the time I arrived it was raining harder and just about dark. I ditched my rain gear, cleaned up some, and prepared to weather out the building storm. That night the severe thunder and lightning kept me awake till about two in the morning. Even with the rain fly on the tent and my eyes closed I could see the lightning almost as clearly as if I was outside. Sometimes there would be thirty or forty strikes a minute varying from several miles away to almost on top of me. Luckily there was a higher ridge a few hundred yards from me and most of the strikes seemed to be higher up on the mountain. Along with the lightning and deafening thunder there was also the sound of a heavy hail to help keep we awake late into the night. When I awoke briefly at five that morning the storm was still continuing. Luckily the storm didn't have high winds accompanying it so my tent was never in any danger of becoming unanchored.
     I crawled out of the tent at about ten in the morning and was immediately rewarded with my first view of the whole Matterhorn. Besides the view another thing that had changed was that I had gained a small pond in the shallow bowl I was camped in. It was about twenty five feet long fifteen feet wide and a couple of feet deep. It provided water without the hassle of melting snow but it only lasted for a day. I was lucky I hadn't pitched my tent where the pond had formed. I spent the rest of the morning trying to dry out my wet clothing from the climb the day before. Early in the afternoon I hiked back up the trail to the Hornlihutte to take some pictures and check on the conditions. It took me less time to get up to it then it had taken me to hobble down the evening before. When I arrived at the Hornlihutte the air was crisp, clean and fresh. The view was majestic.
     The restaurant was open but since I'm a fussy eater I decided on having a couple of beers on the patio instead of trying their food. A half liter (16 oz.) can of Danish beer was Fr 6 ($4.20) and I had two served by the pretty French waitress I had seen the night before. She didn't speak very much English but she managed to convey the severity of the storm they had experienced the night before. I guess many of the lightening strikes had been in their area and on the nearby higher portions of the Matterhorn. The usual route leading up from the Hornlihutte, which goes up the knife edge between the north and east faces, didn't look any more difficult then the climb I had made the day before but the locals claimed the conditions were extremely dangerous. Again I heard that one person had died and nobody had made the summit yet that season. The helicopter I had seen the day before had pulled a climber off the mountain. According to one of the employees "he had fallen down a bit". I think he was probably the guy I was supposed to have climbed with that day.
    It was recommended to me that I go back to Zermatt and try and find at least one climbing partner there. It would probably be easier there because by the time climbers got up to the hut they usually already had their teams formed. Depending on the weather conditions it was possible the mountain would be more manageable in a couple of days. The last storm had only dusted it with light snow and hail and even my tracks in the snow from the previous day could still be discerned. I spent a couple of hours on the patio. Partly trying to visually trace the summit route but mostly photographing and enjoying the spectacular view. There is a high elevation emergency bivouac shelter with a radio telephone at around 13,133' but it can't be seen from the Hornlihutte. I hadn't brought the equipment up from my main camp because I was only there to check out the conditions. If I were trying for the summit it was nice to know there was emergency shelter about 2500' above the Hornlihutte and about 1500' below the summit. Judging by the amount of time it had taken me on my climb the day before I was guesstimating a summit attempt and return to the Hornlihutte of about twenty hours.
     I photographed an American family and a Scotsman with their own cameras and they returned the favor by getting a couple of shots of me with mine. I had brought my telephoto lens so I was able to get a picture of my camp with the tent discernible and Zermatt below in the background. The southern view, which wasn't available from my camp, was impressive with the amount of snow and ice on the northern face of the international border ridge. The huge river of ice comprising the Gonnergrat Glacier and the high Monte Rosa Massif dominated the eastern view. From there the ridge continued around to the south in a magnificent panorama until it connected to the eastern face of the Matterhorn. The ridge includes some dramatic peaks such as Castor and Pollux, Kleine Matterhorn, and the Frugghorn.
When I left the French waitress asked if I was going to be back the next day. I honestly told her I didn't know, I hadn't made up my mind whether I was going to hang around hoping for improved conditions or head back down to Zermatt for some of the village luxuries. The two beers had made me a little light headed and I was glad I was going down instead of having to work at climbing up. After I left it dawned on me I should have gotten a couple of beers to go since I had my natural refrigerator next to my tent. I had been having insomnia and hadn't been able to get to sleep at night even when I was physically tired. A few extra beers could have probably helped solve the problem. As it was it turned out to be another late night waiting to fall asleep.
     The next morning the upper reaches of the mountain were again hidden in the clouds. For the first two days the prevailing winds had been from the south and I blamed the cloud conditions on the warm moist air from the Mediterranean coming up through Italy. On the previous day the winds had been from the north and the mountain had been mostly clear, which helped to support my theory. On this morning the winds were still from the north but the high altitude clouds were back. So much for theories. According to a book I had read it is rare to see the whole Matterhorn. Then again the book also claimed that thunderstorms were rare in the area, only occurring a couple of days a year. I must have been lucky to have hit those couple of days. With the almost constant cloud cover I imagine most the climbers who reach the summit don't have much of a view.
     I decided on going back down to Zermatt for a few days to enjoy my vacation and wait for the conditions on the mountain to hopefully change for the better. There was a waterfall below my camp I wanted to check out but instead decided to go back down the way I had come up. The trail which went by the falls had to climb up eight hundred feet again to get to Schwartzee and I didn't feel like doing any avoidable uphill climbing with a full pack. The trip back to Schwartzee was mostly all down hill with only one slight obstacle. The overhand at the start of the cat walk was a little harder to negotiate going down hill. The cat walk had a railing but the section under the overhang was actually on a short wooden plank without the added protection of the railing. The drop to the steep scree slope was only fifteen or twenty feet but probably would have smarted.
     When I reached a lower grassy area I passed a flock of sheep who were grazing on the trail. I also passed two Italian climbers whom were going up to make a summit attempt. When I reached the restaurant I bought a pack of cigarettes and had a couple of beers on the patio. I had smoked ten small cigars while on the mountain and deemed myself hooked again. There was no one at the tramway station window so I paid my fair to the operator and went back down to Zermatt. I took the train from Zermatt back to my rental car at Tasch and got rid of my expedition pack. I assembled an appropriate summit pack and took the train back to Zermatt again. At the Zermatt station I called the Weisshorn Hotel and reserved a room. The rates turned out to be very reasonable. Since I didn't want the breakfast that normally came with the room the cute young blonde at the desk only charged me Fr 30 ($22) a night. The room had a small bed, with a down comforter, a sink, a table and chair, a night stand and a small wardrobe closet. The third floor I was on had about six or eight rooms which shared a toilet room and two shower rooms. That afternoon and evening I wandered around town enjoying the quaint tourist trap village atmosphere and the luxuries I had missed living in a tent. I found a British girl working at the nearby Hexen Bar and she turned me onto the North Wall which was a predominantly English speaking bar hang out. I found a Roman pizzeria which cooked their pizzas in a wood fueled clay oven. A small plain cheese pizza and a beer cost me over ten dollars after including the tip. The thing I liked about Zermatt was the international flavor. It seemed the predominant spoken languages were French or German, but many people also spoke Italian or English and many were trying to learn Japanese because of the recent influx of Japanese tourists. The Japanese got by all right because the mandatory second language in Japan is English. I closed the Hexen Bar around midnight and called it a night.
    I had only planned on staying one night but the next morning I decided to rent the room for a second night. I took the Gonnergratbahn up to Gonnergrat which is at a little over ten thousand feet. It was the first time I had ever been on a cog railroad. Besides the two normal tracks there was a third track in the center with teeth on it. This third track was what the train used to get up the steep terrain. The train was expensive (Fr 28 ($20) one way), slow and vibrated like hell. The four hour walk back down to Zermatt was supposed to feature spectacular views of the Matterhorn, but the day I walked it the mountain was completely hidden by storm clouds. It was snowing lightly when I was at Gonnergrat and most of the four hours was in a light to medium rain. Luckily I had rain gear with me and the all downhill route went through Riffelalp and Riffelberg which both featured a hotel and restaurant which served beer and offered a chance to get out of the rain.
     The second night after closing the North Wall at around midnight I found a few of the late night clubs which I stayed in till around two or three. These clubs seemed to be mostly occupied by denizens of the dead and really weren't my kind of places. The next morning was the Fourth of July and the day long storm of the previous day was completely gone. The Matterhorn had received a substantial dusting of new snow and appeared to be in even worse climbing condition. Even though the North Wall was planning on having a Fourth of July party that evening, I decided to head for Innsbruck instead of hanging around Zermatt. I probably should have stayed around a few more days, even though the Matterhorn wasn't going to be easily climbable, because it turned out that in my opinion Zermatt was the best place I saw in Europe.

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