It is strange how the memory of this the most dramatic—if it may be so termed—of all the accidents which have ever happened in the Alps is still indelibly impressed on the minds of climbers, guides, and amateurs alike. It is the commonest thing to hear it discussed, and the theories put forward as to the cause of the rope giving way where it did are various and ingenious. Unfortunately for the reputation of old Taugwalder, the report of the official investigation held by the local authorities after the accident has never to this day been made public. As a consequence, old Taugwalder has suffered irretrievably from a report mischievously circulated by his fellow-villagers to the effect, that at the moment of the slip, he sacrificed his companions to save himself, by severing the rope! And in spite of Mr Whymper’s assertions that the thing was impossible, there are some who still persist in maintaining that he cut it. The suspicion under which he laboured so preyed upon his spirits that he quitted the scene, and for many years never returned to his native village. The younger Taugwalder became one of the leading guides of the valley.
Thrice again has the Matterhorn been the scene of death in a terrible form. In 1879, the mountain claimed two more victims. In the one case, an American, Dr Moseley, disregarding the most ordinary precautions, slipped and perished horribly, falling a height of some two thousand feet, on to some rocks a little way down the Furggen Glacier. Dr Moseley, accompanied by Mr Craven and the well-known Oberland guides, Christian Inäbnit and Peter Rubi, left Zermatt on the night of August 13, with the intention of making a one-day ascent of the Matterhorn. Both gentlemen were members of the Alpine Club, and mountaineers of considerable experience. The summit was reached successfully at nine o’clock on the morning of the 14th; and after a short halt, the descent was commenced. Dr Moseley, who was a skilful rock-climber, and possessed of great confidence in his own climbing powers, soon after passing the most difficult bit of the mountain, complained that the rope was a considerable hindrance; and notwithstanding the remonstrances of Mr Craven and the guides, insisted on detaching himself from the other members of the party. At some little distance from the old hut, the party had to cross a projecting ledge of smooth rock. Rubi crossed first, and planted his axe so as to give Dr Moseley a firm foothold; but Dr Moseley, declining the proffered assistance, placed his hand upon the rock and endeavoured to vault over it. In an instant, his foot slipped, his axe flew out of his hand, and he fell on to some snow beneath, down which he commenced to slide on his back. The snow was frozen, and he dropped on to some rocks below. With a desperate effort, he turned himself round and tried to grasp the rocks with his hands; but the impetus attained was too great, and he fell from rock to rock till lost to his companions’ sight. The body was subsequently recovered; and from the terrible nature of the fall, death must have ensued long before the bottom was reached.
Here was a case of a valuable life absolutely thrown away, for, had Dr Moseley remained on the rope, the accident would never have happened. It was the same over-confidence that cost the life of the Rev. J. M. Elliott on the Schreckhorn, and it is to be feared will cost the lives of others yet, if the warning conveyed by the fall of these two accomplished mountaineers continues to be disregarded. There was another circumstance, too, which had a bearing on the accident, and which is an additional proof of a want of carefulness on the part of the unfortunate man—his boots were found, on examination, to be almost entirely devoid of nails, and were, therefore, practically useless for mountaineering purposes.
In the other case, a death occurred under circumstances which are happily without a parallel in the annals of mountaineering. Two members of the Basle section of the Swiss Alpine Club—a body in no way connected with our own Alpine Club—engaged three guides—J. M. Lochmatter and Joseph Brantschen, both of St Nicolas, and P. Beytrison of Evolena—to take them over the Matterhorn from Breuil to Zermatt. They left the first-named place on the morning of August 12, and in the afternoon reached the hut which the Italian Alpine Club have built at an elevation of some thirteen thousand feet, amidst the wildest crags of the Matterhorn, intending to sleep there, and cross the mountain to Zermatt in the course of the following day. During the night, the guide Brantschen was taken ill, and by morning had become so weak as to be quite unable to move. Now, under these circumstances, it might have been supposed that Brantschen would have been the first consideration; but the two Swiss gentlemen thought otherwise. Instead of at once abandoning the expedition, and sending down for help to Breuil, after a brief consultation they announced to Lochmatter their intention of proceeding to Zermatt, and ordered him and Beytrison to get ready to start. They were conscious of the fact that Brantschen had become dangerously ill, and appear to have demurred at first, but weakly gave in on their employers insisting. A blanket was thrown over the sick man, a little food placed beside him, and then the party filed out of the hut, and the door was shut. It is possible that in their leaving Brantschen they were scarcely alive to the consequences of their act; it is to be hoped, at all events, that they were not; but from the moment that the hut was left, they deliberately condemned the sick man to at least thirty-six hours of absolute solitude. In fact, by the adoption of this course, the nearest succour—at the pace of the party—was nineteen and a half hours off, whereas Breuil would have been only eight. They crossed the mountain safely, but being bad walkers, did not reach Zermatt till half-past one the following morning. They then caused a relief party of guides to be sent out; but it was too late. On reaching the hut, the unfortunate man was found to be dead. The conduct of his employers did not escape criticism both at home and abroad.
There have been accidents on the Matterhorn since 1879; but although in more than one instance there has been a narrow escape, only once has any further life been sacrificed.
Within a few days of the first ascent of the Matterhorn, on July 18, 1865, J. A. Carrel and Bich succeeded in reaching the summit from the Italian side, by a feat of rock-climbing scarcely equalled for daring in the annals of mountaineering. Since then, ascents of the Matterhorn have multiplied year by year; but for every one ascent by the Italian route, there must be twenty at least by the Zermatt. In fact, the former route is scarcely adapted for any but good mountaineers. The Matterhorn has also been climbed from the Zmutt side; but this route has never become popular. The first traveller to ascend the Matterhorn from Breuil was Mr F. Craufurd Grove, the present President of the Alpine Club; and of other remarkable ascents may be mentioned those of Miss Walker, accompanied by her brother and Mr Gardiner—Miss Walker being the first lady to climb the Matterhorn—of the Misses Pigeon, who were weather-bound for three days in the hut on the Italian side; and in descending to Zermatt, after crossing the summit, were benighted, and had to remain on the open mountain-side till daybreak; of Messrs Cawood, Colgrove, and Cust, who made the ascent from Zermatt without guides; of the ill-fated expeditions in which the lives of Dr Moseley, the guide Brantschen, and Mr Borckhardt were lost; and of Mr Mummery and the late Mr Penhall, who each discovered a new route from the Zmutt side.
The Matterhorn has likewise been ascended in the winter; as the writer can assert from experience, having accomplished the feat—such as it was—in the days when it had not become the everyday affair that it is now. With two guides, one of whom was the well-known Joseph Imboden of St Nicolas, I arrived at Zermatt one fine afternoon in August, resolved upon a one-day ascent of the Matterhorn. A start was to be made at midnight; and soon after that hour, we were picking our way over the stones which paved the deserted village street in the darkness of a moonless night. Leaving the village behind us, we commenced to ascend through the meadows beyond the village, Imboden leading, and never for a moment pausing, although, in that uncertain light, it was difficult to distinguish a track of any kind. We reached the barren Hörnli Ridge, and as we commenced to traverse it, the sky grew lighter with the dawn of day. We were close to the foot of the Matterhorn now, and it loomed upon us, towering high into the sky, and seeming to my eyes one mighty series of precipices from base to summit. There was a solemn grandeur about the scene which seemed even to have its influence upon my companion, for not a word was spoken as we strode on towards the mountain. But when once we were upon the rock itself, I found that the difficulties which I had pictured to myself as likely to arise had little existence in fact; the series of precipices resolved themselves into a rocky surface, much broken, and yielding capital hand and foot hold everywhere. The incline, too, was very much less steep than it had appeared at a distance. No difficulty indeed presented itself; and climbing upwards rapidly, in two hours from the Hörnli we were at the hut which in those days was generally made use of for passing the night previous to an ascent. This hut is built beneath the shelter of an overhanging cliff, on a narrow rock platform, and its position does not give one an idea of security. It is cramped, and when I saw it, was very dirty, and indeed looked altogether so uninviting, that I congratulated myself on having avoided a night in it. We found the stove useful, though, for cooking our breakfast. This hut has now been superseded by a larger building, erected lower down the mountain. We finished our breakfast, and set out once more.
Hitherto, the work had been quite easy; but now came something stiffer, our first experience being on an ice-slope at an angle of perhaps forty-five degrees, overhanging the route by which we had ascended, and by which, had any false step been made, we should have returned somewhat hastily. A party that had gone up the day before spared us any step-cutting, for they had done their work so satisfactorily that quite a staircase remained for our use. We reached the top of the slope in safety; a knife-edge of snow led us to the right, and almost immediately we found ourselves upon the most difficult bit of the mountain, the northern face. Rounding the edge of the mountain, you look down, and below you, the face of the cliff falls away steeply, till it terminates in a drop of three thousand feet or more. Above, rises perpendicularly almost a succession of knobs of rock, overlapping one another, and more or less coated with snow and ice. The position may be rendered exciting enough to please any one by the addition of one or two incompetent individuals to the party.
Our progress was slow but steady. Imboden would scan the face of the cliff, climb up a few feet, and when firmly fixed, call to me to follow, the operation then being repeated with the second guide. We sighted the summit at fifteen minutes past eight; and in less than two hours after leaving the hut we were on the highest point. The summit varies much, differing in shape with each successive season; and when we were there, it was a ridge of snow, narrow in places, broader in others, though nowhere was it possible to walk three abreast. We had a glorious view; but in this respect the Matterhorn is perhaps inferior to some of its neighbours, notably to Monte Rosa and the Dom.
During the descent, Imboden exercised even greater care, and we reached the hut again safely. From there, we made our way leisurely down to Zermatt, where we arrived soon after three o’clock in the afternoon, after an unusually quick ascent, thanks to the splendid weather and the easy state of the northern face, which, while it cost us only two hours, has sometimes given a party seven hours or more of hard work. On the way down, Imboden pointed out to me two blanched fragments of rope trailing from the rocks far up on the northern face. They were left there by Mr Whymper after the accident, and marked the spot close by where it occurred. There they remained as cherished relics till last year, when a traveller sent his guide to cut them down and bring them away. It is sad to think that it was an Englishman who was guilty of this wanton act.