The Ascent of the Matterhorn

by Edward Whymper

The year 1862 was still young, and the Matterhorn, clad in its wintry garb, bore but little resemblance to the Matterhorn of the summer, when a new force came to do battle with the mountain, from another direction. Mr. T. S. Kennedy of Leeds conceived the extraordinary idea that the peak might prove less impracticable in January than in June, and arrived at Zermatt in the former month to put his conception to the test. With stout Peter Perrn and sturdy Peter Taugwalder he slept in the little chapel at the Schwarzensee, and on the next morning, like the Messrs. Parker, followed the ridge between the peak called Hörnli and the great mountain. But they found that snow in winter obeyed the ordinary laws, and that the wind and frost were not less unkind than in summer. “The wind whirled up the snow and spiculæ of ice into our faces like needles, and flat pieces of ice a foot in diameter, carried up from the glacier below, went flying past. Still no one seemed to like to be the first to give in, till a gust fiercer than usual forced us to shelter for a time behind a rock. Immediately it was tacitly understood that our expedition must now end; but we [pg 59]determined to leave some memento of our visit, and, after descending a considerable distance, we found a suitable place with loose stones of which to build a cairn. In half-an-hour a tower six feet high was erected; a bottle, with the date, was placed inside, and we retreated as rapidly as possible.”[48] This cairn was placed at the spot marked upon Dufour’s Map of Switzerland 10,820 feet (3298 mètres), and the highest point attained by Mr. Kennedy was not, I imagine, more than two or three hundred feet above it.

Shortly after this Professor Tyndall gave, in his little tract Mountaineering in 1861, an account of the reason why he had left Breil, in August 1861, without doing anything.[49] It seems that he sent his guide Bennen to reconnoitre, and that the latter made the following report to his employer:—“Herr, I have examined the mountain carefully, and find it more difficult and dangerous than I had imagined. There is no place upon it where we could well pass the night. We might do so on yonder Col upon the snow, but there we should be almost frozen to death, and totally unfit for the work of the next day. On the rocks there is no ledge or cranny which could give us proper harbourage; and starting from Breuil it is certainly impossible to reach the summit in a single day.” “I was entirely taken aback,” says Tyndall, “by this report. I felt like a man whose grip had given way, and who was dropping through the air.... Bennen was evidently dead against any attempt upon the mountain. ‘We can, at all events, reach the lower of the two summits,’ I remarked. ‘Even that is difficult,’ he replied; ‘but when you have reached it, what then? The peak has neither name nor fame.’ ”[50]

I was more surprised than discouraged by this report by Bennen. One half of his assertions I knew to be wrong. The Col to which he referred was the Col du Lion, upon which we had passed a night less than a week after he had spoken so authoritatively; and I had seen a place not far below the “Chimney,”—a place about 500 feet above the Col—where it seemed possible to construct a sleeping-place. Bennen’s opinions seem to have undergone a complete change. In 1860 he is described as having been enthusiastic to make an attempt, and in 1861 he was dead against one. Nothing dismayed by this, my friend Mr. Reginald Macdonald, our companion on the Pelvoux—to whom so much of our success had been due, agreed to join me in a renewed assault from the south; and, although we failed to secure Melchior Anderegg and some other notable guides, we obtained two men of repute, namely, Johann zum Taugwald and Johann Kronig, of Zermatt. We met at that place early in July, but stormy weather prevented us even from passing to the other side of the chain for some time. We crossed the Col Théodule on the 5th, in thoroughly unsettled weather—rain was falling in the valleys, and snow upon the mountains. Shortly before we gained the summit we were made extremely uncomfortable by hearing mysterious, rushing sounds, which sometimes seemed as if a sudden gust of wind was sweeping along the snow, and, at others, almost like the swishing of a long whip: yet the snow exhibited no signs of motion, and the air was perfectly calm. The dense, black storm-clouds made us momentarily expect that our bodies might be used as lightning-conductors, and we were well satisfied to get under shelter of the inn at Breil, without having submitted to any such experience.[51]

We had need of a porter, and, by the advice of our landlord, descended to the chalets of Breil in search of one Luc Meynet. We found his house a mean abode, encumbered with cheese-making apparatus, and tenanted only by some bright-eyed children; but as they said that uncle Luc would soon be home, we waited at the door of the little chalet and watched for him. At last a speck was seen coming round the corner of the patch of firs below Breil, and then the children clapped their hands, dropped their toys, and ran eagerly forward to meet him. We saw an ungainly, wobbling figure stoop down and catch up the little ones, kiss them on each cheek, and put them into the empty panniers on each side of the mule, and then heard it come on carolling, as if this was not a world of woe: and yet the face of little Luc Meynet, the hunchback of Breil, bore traces of trouble and sorrow, and there was more than a touch of sadness in his voice when he said that he must look after his brother’s children. All his difficulties were, however, at length overcome, and he agreed to join us to carry the tent.

In the past winter I had turned my attention to tents, and that which we had brought with us was the result of experiments to devise one which should be sufficiently portable to be taken over the most difficult ground, and which should combine lightness with stability. Its base was just under six feet square, and a cross-section perpendicular to its length was an equilateral triangle, the sides of which were six feet long. It was intended to accommodate four persons. It was supported by four ash-poles, six feet and a half long, and one inch and a quarter thick, tapering to the top to an inch and an eighth; these were shod with iron points. The order of proceeding in the construction of the tent was as follows:—Holes were drilled through the poles about five inches from their tops, for the insertion of two wrought-iron bolts, three inches long [pg 62]and one quarter of an inch thick. The bolts were then inserted, and the two pairs of poles were set out (and fixed up by cords), to the proper dimensions. The roof was then put on. This was made of the rough, unbleached calico called forfar, which can be obtained in six-feet widths, and it was continued round for about two feet, on each side, on to the floor. The width of the material was the length of the tent, and seams were thus avoided in the roof. The forfar was sewn round each pole; particular care being taken to avoid wrinkles, and to get the whole perfectly taut. The flooring was next put in and sewn down to the forfar. This was of the ordinary plaid mackintosh, about nine feet square; the surplus three feet being continued up the sides to [pg 63]prevent draughts. It is as well to have two feet of this surplus on one side, and only one foot on the other; the latter amount being sufficient for the side occupied by the feet. One end was then permanently closed by a triangular piece of forfar, which was sewn down to that which was already fixed. The other end was left open, and had two triangular flaps that overlapped each other, and which were fastened up when we were inside by pieces of tape. Lastly, the forfar was nailed down to the poles to prevent the tent getting out of shape. The cord which was used for climbing served for the tent; it was passed over the crossed poles and underneath the ridge of the roof, and the two ends—one fore and the other aft—were easily secured to pieces of rock. Such a tent costs about four guineas, and its weight is about twenty-three pounds; or, if the lightest kind of forfar is used, it need not exceed twenty pounds. When it was fastened up for transport it presented the appearance shown in the portrait of Meynet at [p. 234], and it could be unrolled and set up by two persons in three minutes; a point of no small importance during extreme weather.

THE AUTHOR’S MOUNTAIN TENT.

This tent is intended, and adapted, for camping out at high altitudes, or in cold climates. It is not pretended that it is perfectly waterproof, but it can be made so by the addition of mackintosh to the roof; and this increases the weight by only two and a half pounds. It is then fit for general use.[52] It may be observed that the pattern of this tent is identical in all essential points with that arrived at (after great experience) by Sir Leopold M’Clintock for Arctic work, and frequent use by many persons, under varied conditions, has shown that the pattern is both practical and substantial.

Sunday, the 6th of July, was showery, and snow fell on the Matterhorn, but we started on the following morning with our three men, and pursued my route of the previous year. I was requested to direct the way, as none save myself had been on the mountain before. I did not distinguish myself upon this occasion, and led my companions nearly to the top of the small peak before the mistake was discovered. The party becoming rebellious, a little exploration was made towards our right, and we found that we were upon the top of the cliff overlooking the Col du Lion. The upper part of the small peak is of a very different character to the lower part; the rocks are not so firm, and they are usually covered, or intermixed, with snow, and glazed with ice: the angle too is more severe. While descending a small snow-slope, to get on to the right track, Kronig slipped on a streak of ice, and went down at a fearful pace. Fortunately he kept on his legs, and, by a great effort, succeeded in stopping just before he arrived at some rocks that jutted through the snow, which would infallibly have knocked him over. When we rejoined him a few minutes later, we found that he was incapable of standing, much less of moving, with a face corpse-like in hue, and trembling violently. He remained in this condition for more than an hour, and the day was consequently far advanced before we arrived at our camping-place on the Col. Profiting by the experience of last year, we did not pitch the tent actually on the snow, but collected a quantity of débris from the neighbouring ledges, and after constructing a rough platform of the larger pieces, levelled the whole with the dirt and mud.