Matterhorn, Alpine mountain at Swiss-Italian border.

The Matterhorn stands 4478 meters tall on the border between Switzerland and Italy, forming a near-perfect pyramid with four steep faces above the valleys of Zermatt and Breuil-Cervinia. Its north face drops directly over Zermatt, while the south face looks toward Italy, and both sides show bare rock with narrow ridges leading to the summit.

Edward Whymper led the first successful ascent in July 1865, though the expedition ended in tragedy when four climbers died during the descent. The disaster sparked debate over the dangers of mountaineering and turned the peak into a symbol of the risks that come with climbing.

Mountain guides in Zermatt and Breuil-Cervinia pass down knowledge of the routes through family lines that stretch back more than a century. You can still see the old ropes and tools in local mountaineering museums, where villagers share stories of the early expeditions.

The climbing season runs from mid-June through mid-September, when conditions are most stable and the mountain huts remain open. The two main routes begin at Hörnli Hut on the Swiss side and Carrel Hut on the Italian side, both requiring technical skill and acclimatization.

The Matterhorn is built from two rock packages lying at an angle on each other: the lower part up to the Hörnli Hut is Penninic, while the horn itself belongs to the Dent Blanche nappe, with orthogneisses and metagabbros up to the shoulder and high-metamorphic paragneisses above. On 13 June 2023, about 20 cubic metres of rock collapsed from a free-standing pillar on the Hörnli ridge; the fall had been predicted after years of monitoring, and melting permafrost was the cause.