Tragedy On The Matterhorn

The conquest of the last great Alpine peak in 1865 should have been a triumph, but instead ended in the deaths of four climbers. Peter H Hansen examines its impact on attitudes to mountaineers

- Peter H Hansen

A moment was all it took for joy to be supplanted by horror. Less than an hour after Edward Whymper had laughed in jubilation from the summit of the Matterhorn on July 14, 1865 – having completed the first successful ascent of the Alpine peak on the Swiss-Italian border – his triumph was shattered by tragedy.

Among his group was an inexperienced young climber who slipped on a treacherous section of descent, dragging off the mountain three others who were roped to him. On hearing the cries of the falling men, Whymper and his two local guides had just an instant to brace themselves before the force of the accident broke the rope tying them to the falling climbers.

“For a few seconds,” Whymper recalled, “we saw our unfortunate companions sliding downwards on their backs, and spreading out their hands, endeavouring to save themselves. They passed from our sight uninjured, disappeared one by one, and fell from precipice to precipice.” The four hapless climbers plummeted 1,200 metres, their bodies dashed to pieces on the glacier below.

The Matterhorn accident was one of the deadliest mountaineering catastrophes of the 19th century, sparking a wide debate about mountaineering, masculinity and empire.

Whymper was the unlikely leader of a climbing team that had been formed only days earlier. This engraver from south London had laid siege to the Matterhorn since 1861, climbing on its southern (Italian) ridges by himself or with guides. On the eve of his 1865 attempt, however, the bravest of these guides, Jean-Antoine Carrel, transferred his services to a group of climbers from Turin who hoped to plant the flag of the recently unified Italy on the summit.