Highest Mountains in Switzerland

Geography and climate

Monte Rosa covers areas on both sides of the border between the Swiss canton of Valais and the Italian regions of Piedmont and Aosta Valley. The main summit of Monte Rosa is the Dufourspitze. On the Swiss side the town centre of Zermatt is about 13 km (8.1 mi) north-west and 3,000 m (9,800 ft) below it. On the Italian side of the massif are located 9 km (5.6 mi) north-east Macugnaga in the Valle Anzasca,11 km (6.8 mi) south-east-south Alagna Valsesia in the Valsesia and 13 km (8.1 mi) Gressoney-La-Trinité in the Val de Gressoney, respectively, away from the summit. The different sides of the mountain greatly differ from each other.

Tourism

The Monte Rosa massif is popular for mountaineering, hiking, skiing and snowboarding. It hosts several ski resorts with long pistes. Plateau Rosa, about 3,500 metres (11,500 ft) high above sea level, is a summer ski resort, with snow all year round due to the altitude. The Plateau Rosa is connected via aerial tramway to Cervinia and to Zermatt via the Klein Matterhorn. The western fringes of the massif reach the Zermatt ski domain. Gressoney, Champoluc, Alagna Valsesia and Macugnaga (under the east face, intensely glaciated and 2,500 metres (8,200 ft) high) are the main mountain and ski resorts that surround Monte Rosa along its southern side.

Geography

The Matterhorn has a pyramidal shape with four faces nearly facing the four compass points. Three of them (north, east and west) are on the Swiss side of the border and watershed (Mattertal valley), and one of them (south) is on the Italian side of the border (Valtournenche valley). The north face overlooks the Ober Gabelhorn (7 km away) across the Zmutt Glacier and valley (above Zermatt), the east face overlooks the Gorner Glacier system between the Gornergrat and Monte Rosa (respectively 10 and 17 km away) across the Theodul Pass, the west face overlooks the upper basin of the Zmutt Glacier between the Dent Blanche and the Dent d'Hérens (respectively 7 and 4 km away) and the south face fronts the resort town of Breuil-Cervinia and overlooks a good portion of the Valtournenche.

Geology

The Matterhorn's pyramid is composed of Paleozoic rocks, which were thrust over the Matterhorn's Mesozoic base during the Cenozoic. Quaternary glaciation and weathering give the mountain its current shape.

Apart from the base of the mountain, the Matterhorn is composed of gneiss belonging to the Dent Blanche klippe, an isolated part of the Austroalpine nappes, lying over the Penninic nappes. The Austroalpine nappes are part of the Apulian plate, a small continent that broke up from Africa before the Alpine orogeny. For this reason, the Matterhorn has been popularised as an African mountain. The Austroalpine nappes are mostly common in the Eastern Alps.

Climbing history

The Matterhorn was one of the last of the main Alpine mountains to be ascended, not because of its technical difficulty, but because of the fear it inspired in early mountaineers. The first serious attempts were all from the Italian side, although, despite appearances, the southern routes are technically more difficult. The main figures were Jean-Antoine Carrel and his uncle Jean-Jacques Carrel, from the Valtournenche area, who made the first attempts in 1857 and 1858, reaching 3,800 m (12,500 ft) on the latter occasion. In July 1860, three brothers from Liverpool attempted the mountain, Alfred, Charles and Sandbach Parker, but they turned back at about 3,500 m (11,500 ft).

History

Aegidius Tschudi, one of the earliest Alpine topographers and historians, was the first to mention the region around the Matterhorn in his work, De Prisca ac Vera Alpina Raethi, published in Basel in 1538. He approached the Matterhorn as a student when in his Alpine travels he reached the summit of the Theodul Pass, but he does not seem to have paid any particular attention to the mountain itself.

The Matterhorn remained unstudied for more than two centuries, until a geologist from Geneva, Horace Benedict de Saussure, travelled to the mountain, which filled him with admiration.

Geography

Despite being the most elevated, prominent and isolated mountain of both the Bernese Alps and the canton of Bern, the Finsteraarhorn is less known and frequented than the nearby Jungfrau and Eiger. This is due to its location in one of the most remote areas in the Alps, completely surrounded by uninhabited glacial valleys.

To its west lies the Fiescher Glacier, the second longest in the Alps, and to the east lie the Great Aar Glaciers. The smaller Lower Grindelwald Glacier lies north of the massif. The Finsteraarhorn is surrounded by the summits of the Schreckhorn and Lauteraarhorn to the north, the Gross Fiescherhorn, Grünhorn and Gross Wannenhorn to the west and the Oberaarhorn to the east.

The summit lies on the border between the cantons of Valais and Bern.

Geology

The Finsteraarhorn is the culminating point of the Aarmassif, a geologic crystalline massif which crops out in the eastern Bernese Alps and Urner Alps. The massif belongs to the Helvetic zone and consists of rocks from the European continent, mainly granites and gneisses. The summit itself is composed of amphibolites.

The tectonic uplift of the massif occurred late in the alpine orogeny, during the Oligocene, 30 to 40 million years ago. The inelastic deformation of rocks led to many fractures and formation of hydrothermal crystals by the deposition of the saturated water flowing inside.

Climbing history

The first ascent was long a controversial matter. The first attempt was made on 16 August 1812 by the Aargau merchant Rudolph Meyer, guided by the locals Kaspar Huber, Arnold Abbühl, Joseph Bortes and Aloys Volker. Bortes and Volker, guiding Meyer's father and uncle, had been the first to climb the Jungfrau the previous year. They approached the mountain via the Oberaarjoch, Studer glacier, and south-east ridge, which is a more difficult and longer route than the current normal route over the north-west ridge. Meyer became exhausted and remained behind after reaching the ridge, perhaps near P. 3883 (Meyer's Peak). Huber kept him company, while the three other guides went on and purportedly reached the summit after three hours.