An Eventful Ascent of Matterhorn (4478m)

We should have understood that the mountain was not in state the moment we entered the Hörnli Hut. It is said that, on a normal day, when the Hörnli Ridge is relatively ice and snow free and climbable, there could be up to 200 climbers in the hut, ready for their attempt on Matterhorn next morning. As we entered the hut, we noticed that there were no more than 20 people, many of them climbers, several of them guides and a few tourists who had hiked up from Zermatt and had no intention of scaling the mountain. We did not need to come up all the way to the Hörnli Hut to know why there were so few people planning to climb the mountain that day. We could have seen from the valley that Matterhorn was covered in snow and ice and that scaling of the ridge would require use of crampons from very early on.

After the dinner, a guide approached a couple of people sitting next to us and gave them instructions about what to do next morning: “come down dressed and have your harnesses on; we will start at once after having breakfast and we will ascent rapidly.” What he did not mention, but we all knew perfectly well was that the reason for this haste was to shake off any “free riders” who could tail the guided teams at the start of the climb, where large number of false trails often mislead climbers. On Matterhorn, there are no cairns, no marks or no clear path that can facilitate the ascent – any marks or cairns are said to be destroyed or removed by the guides, who would rather like to make themselves indispensable to the large number of inexperienced summit-aspirants.

This was Misha’s first trip to the Alps. More due to my age than my experience, I was leading the climbs and making most of the decisions. We were very lucky with the weather. We had traversed Weissmies (4017m), climbed the Cosmiques Arrete of Aiguille de Midi (3842m), the easy East Flank of Aiguille de Tour (3544m) through Col du Tour Superior, and had traversed Mont Blanc (4810m) starting from Cosmiques Hut, climbing up the Les Trois Monts route and coming down the Gouter Route. We were having fantastic time, we were confident and Matterhorn was going to be the final act of our successful season.

We spend the night on a bunkbed in the hut, trying to sleep despite the farts and giggles of a three-man strong Finnish group, who presumably returned to Zermatt the next day. At 4am we started our climb and quickly scrambled up the short rock face (grade I and II) which was situated behind the hut. Due to the death toll on the mountain (500 killed according to a guide book which was written more than 20 years ago) I was naturally anxious and nervous, but climb, we did. The apprehension that had held me in its grips since yesterday evening gradually disappeared and I started to concentrate on the climb. After a very short while, however, we started encountering forks leading to false trails and we started losing precious time as we frequently took the wrong exit and had to return. We started to lag behind. Later, our speed was reduced further because of our tendency to fall into the temptation of clipping into every piece of running belay that we encountered on our way and “moving together” in places where this was perhaps overcautious and needless, despite the icy conditions of the ridge. Nevertheless, being rock climbers, we rapidly climbed up the Lower Moseley Slab, on long rope (Misha belayed me) and reached the Solvay Hut (4003m) around 10:00 – very late in comparison to the guide book time. I suggested continuing the climb and sleeping at Solvay Hut (as many climbers do, although the hut is an emergency hut and sleeping overnight is not permitted in normal conditions) if we were too late on our return (that we were going tobe too late was obvious at that point). This was a wrong decision, not only because of the risk of being benighted on a steep climb but also because of the weather forecast. A thunder storm was expected later in the afternoon.

We continued our climb, ascending towards Upper Moseley Slab. Immediately after leaving the Solvay Hut, I was surprised to hear a mountain guide asking for my help from above: “would you please clip my client to the bolt which should be on your right.” Guides are usually rude and dismissive towards unguided parties, but apparently not on Matterhorn. Climbing steadily, we reached the crux of the climb (III-), and holding the large chain, climbed it and met a three-man strong Polish team who was returning from the summit. They did not speak any English but told us in German that we had another hour’s climb before we could reach the summit. We were slightly relieved when the rock gave way to snowfields and we finally reached the summit ridge and the summit around 16:00. After hugging a sculpture, wrapping it in a UKC-MC (University of Kent – Mountaineering Club) club t-shirt, congratulating each other and taking pictures, we immediately started our descent. At that moment, I took the second wrong decision of the climb: I wrongly assumed that abseiling down would be faster than climbing down and we started abseiling down using the in-situ metal stakes and bolts. We were using a 50m rope which was marked in the middle with a tape. At one point, I was almost about to fall off the rope because this tape had accidently moved, making one strand of the rope several meters shorter than the other strand! Luckily, I noticed the problem in good time to be able to stop the abseil and make myself safe. By the time we were about to approach the shoulder, the night had started to fall and a thunder storm was passing over us.

What followed was an epic without any heroic dimensions. Using the rope, we were abseiling/moving on the ridge while the skies were gradually turning pitch dark. I knew for sure that we should not be moving right towards the East Face or left towards to North Face as both faces have fierce drops leading to nowhere. We continued on the ridge which was gradually easing to become the famous “Shoulder” of Matterhorn. Then, something unexpected happened: I had finished abseiling and was looking for the next anchor point when the rope suddenly disappeared from my sight with a sharp hiss sound. I asked Misha what had happened. He told me, without losing any of his composure, with his typical London stiff upper lip tone that he had fallen to the left side of the ridge and that he had lost one of his crampons. My first reaction was to swear and curse.  Descending Matterhorn on two crampons is dangerous enough; doing that with only one crampon would be suicidal.

I shouted to Misha, asking if he was still attached to the rope and, if so, if he would be able to climb down towards me. He responded affirmatively and appeared from the dark in no time. Then, we noticed that the rope was stuck and we were unable to pull it down. With one of us with one crampon and both of us without a rope, it didn’t take us long before we made the humiliating decision of calling for the mountain rescue. Luckily, we had reception and dialled the number. The woman on the other side of the line told us that the weather was stormy and that they would not be able to lift us up with a helicopter before next morning. We were doomed to spend the night on the shoulder. I set up anchors and we clipped into them, we put all our clothes on, placed our rucksacks in front of us to shield us against the wind, switched our head torches on (for no apparent reason) and a long and cold night commenced. We sat very close to each other to spare heath. After a while, I told Misha that he would properly never climb together with me again and got the response that we should perhaps have this discussion down at the valley. I was having bad conscience for dragging an inexperienced climbing partner to this mess.

At one point, we heard shouts from below in the dark. Not being able to understand what was going on, I shouted with all my force and tried to establish contact. There was no answer. Next day, after the rescue, we would learn that the Polish team which we had encountered on the way up had suffered an accident. They were abseiling down pitch after pitch and at one point, the abseil anchor of the first climber, who was about to start his abseil, had collapsed. He had fallen down along the East Face to his dead, together with the rope. As a result, the other two were left without a rope and thus without any means of continuing their descent. Consequently, there were two teams stuck on the mountain that night.

The night was cold. As soon as there was a slight breeze Misha, who was sitting on the windward side would start to shiver and I would try to generate some heat by rubbing his back. I was moving forth and back into a state of sleep followed by alertness and my mind was playing tricks on me. At one point, I thought that people carrying very strong head torches were approaching us from below to rescue us. Only after a thin veil of cloud moved over the lights did I notice that what I was looking at were nothing other than the lights of Zermatt. Later Misha told me that I was at moments speaking gibberish. The hours proceeded and the mountains to our east and north east, the Monte Rosa range and Mischabel Alps, started to glow in pink. Soon it was dawn but we were in no mood to enjoy the beauty. It was cold, very cold.  Later in the valley it would take me days to shake out the feeling of chill from my body.

Finally, we heard the sound of the chopper. Oblivious to the accident that happened to the Polish team, we tried to make sense of the sound of the helicopter first approaching and then moving away. Later we learned that they had rescued the two surviving members of the Polish team first and then us and finally evacuated the body of the dead climber. First Misha was attached from his harness to the life line of the helicopter with a carabiner and lifted. Then it was my turn. The helicopter, while I was attached to its bottom in a somewhat upside down position, rapidly flied downwards, following the line of the Hörnli Ridge and very close to the ridge. I wondered if this film-like view was the last thing someone falling off the mountain would see. The whole helicopter flight went very fast and took no more than a couple seconds before we landed on the helicopter platform next to the Hörnli Hut.