Theodul Pass, Mountain pass between Zermatt and Breuil-Cervinia, Switzerland and Italy

Theodul Pass sits at about 3,300 meters (10,800 feet) and links Zermatt in Switzerland to Breuil-Cervinia in Italy across the eastern Pennine Alps. The route crosses snow fields and rocky terrain, with a mountain hut on the pass that provides shelter for walkers and climbers.

A stone axe found in 1895 near the pass came from Brittany and dates to the Neolithic (4000–3500 BC), showing summer use already then; a Roman coin hoard from the 1st–4th century AD was also found near the summit and is now in the Alpine Museum in Zermatt. Paved pack-horse tracks from the 13th century, when the glaciers had retreated, are still partly visible. In 1688 a Savoyard bastion was built on the pass, and in 1865 the glacier researcher D. Dollfuss set up a meteorological station in it.

The pass takes its name from Bishop Theodul of Sion, applied from the late 17th century; the 1862 Dufour map still labelled it Matterjoch. Walser settlers moving into the southern Valais valleys in the first half of the 13th century crossed here, and their partly paved pack-horse tracks survive near the summit. A Roman coin hoard from the 1st to 4th centuries AD, found near the pass, is displayed in the Alpine Museum in Zermatt.

The pass is walkable year-round on the ski slopes laid out on both sides; the north side crosses the nearly flat Upper Theodul Glacier, while the Italian west side is ice-free. The Italian Theodul Hut stands about 100 m north of and 32 m above the pass summit. From Italy the pass is reached from Breuil-Cervinia by a dead-end trail; from Switzerland trails climb from Trockener Steg and the Gandegg Hut.

A stone axe found near the pass in 1895 comes from Brittany and dates to the Neolithic (4000–3500 BC), suggesting the crossing was already used in summer then. A Roman coin hoard from the 1st–4th century AD was also found near the summit and is now in the Alpine Museum in Zermatt.