Ascent of the Matterhorn



		Ascent of the Matterhorn
		August 1994
		I first thought about trying my luck on the Matterhorn way back when on holiday in Cervinia with Adam’s Godfather Adrian Williams and his wife Chooki. In our small hotel we partook of the “Digestif” bottles on the top shelf of the bar over coffee and bridge cards after dinner. We worked our way along the entire row during the week and voted best something called “Amari Monte”with picture of the famous peak called by the Italians Mt Cervin.



		One day, a Guide took us off piste and we arrived at a lonely mountain hotel closed during the winter. Somehow we got in. The walls were covered in marvelous black & white photos of men in funny hats with moustaches, circular little “John Lennon” sun glasses, carrying “proper” hemp ropes and wooden handled ice axes. Twisting of the head was needed to look at these maniacs hanging at funny angles on overhanging rock faces doing crazy things in their leather boots and shooting stockings.

		“Not for me” but the guide said “No no Jonny, there is an easy route for you in the summer” He took me on to the verandah. There was the legendary Matterhorn a majestic triangle smack in front of me filling my vision and a large telescope through which the guide pointed out the route for me.

		I was fired with enthusiasm and sort of said “OK” But it was difficult to make time and even had I done so, one can easily journey out, get fit, get taught whatever and then have the weather prevent the attempt.
		Years went by and I came to doubt if I had just been grateful for the excuse to draw back. Then, walking up the highest mountain in the Moroccan Atlas on touring skis and skins (Toubcal) my Scottish guide, the late Fred Harper, offered to take me up Matterhorn, if I got properly fit. Eventually, after a coming out party for my daughter Charity, I took off to try, on the back of an effort to raise money for cancer research Fred’s dates didn’t fit but on his advice I went to Switzerland. I had by then read something of Whymper, and the British Alpine Club with its club room in the Monte Rosa Hotel, Zermatt. I figured the Swiss would be better organized for Guides and be able to speak better English. Stepping off the Glacier Express cog rail train at Zermatt, there were scores of Japanese having their photograph taken in front of the bulled up resplendent engine called “Mt Fuji”. Five minutes later I was back having forgotten my rucksack. In that time the driver had changed the plate so that the engine was now the Monte Rosa, “ if ever a people knew how to market themselves”!
		I’d been thinking of staying in the Monte Rosa hotel as it was from here that Whymper set off for the first ascent, no doubt after a decent English breakfast. But, the “cost shocks” set in quick and fast. My stockbroker subsequently told me that he’d spent his honeymoon across the street in the Mt Cervin, owned by the same people, and calculated the ice in his gin and tonic came at £5 per cube. The essential mountain Guide came at £300 per day so, I regretfully decided savings had to be made elsewhere. Having taken that decision, I went to the other extreme. Why? No idea, plain contrary I guess. Combing the back streets produced a room in a very old wooden house which stood off the ground with plate shaped stones built into the supporting columns, to stop the rats joining me. To acclimatize to altitude they say you should “walk high, sleep low”. The next shock was the daily cost of a return trip up the cable car system where I aimed to acclimatize, reading my book in the sun, with waiter within a click of the fingers. A couple of hours up there with lunch was going to be £50 to £100 a go, depending on wine. So the stubborn streak came out again and I walked up the mountains and I walked down again. A visit to the top ski station on the Gornergrat was now 4.5 hrs walk, one way.
		I was very cozy in my little room and shared evening meals with the English priest doing a summer stint at the tiny English church. Painted round the arch above the alter are the words “Who in his strength setteth fast the mountains and is girded around with power, to him be praise” I was very happy with that if he’d give me a helping hand. But a Rugbian friend is buried in the church yard. He’d come to grief somewhere and wasn’t found for 25 years until his body came to the foot of the glacier. I sustained my spirits, telling myself Peter was a proper climber, I mean ice and stuff and those overhanging bits no doubt. None of that on “my route”. However, I did have a wobble one Sunday when tolling the bell for Sunday worship, a very bent man was carried in to the service. He had gone up the Matterhorn with the wait for it, “The Coventry Mountaineering Club“ They took my route” and he fell off. He hung on the end of a rope all night with a broken neck before a rescue was effected the following day.
		At least my budget priority was thus confirmed, a damn good local Swiss Guide before all else who had never “lost” a client. My evening meals with the priest were spare. As it happens, he was on a budget too, so we took it in turns daily to select a pudding which was ordered with two spoons and I unashamedly stole an extra roll whenever the opportunity afforded. I walked my “sox” off every day in every direction, knocking off Bergs and little Horns on my own. On the Mettalhorn I came across a young man looking rather white and holding his head. He was a Swiss doctor on holiday trying to cure himself of vertigo and asked if he could accompany me to the top. Now vertigo was something which worried me. When you ascend the Matterhorn, the guide goes first. He secures the rope at the top of each pitch and encourages you to follow. Up you climb facing inwards kissing the rock. You have no view that might un-nerve. But when you descend you have to lead and face outwards towards the void. If you get a problem then there is not much to be done about it. I didn’t like to tell Anwar that I might be as badly affected as he, I simply didn’t know.
		After a slippery scramble up slightly snow covered loose rocks we eventually managed the last pimple hand in hand and threw ourselves down to admire the sky. Then I gingerly eased my nose over the edge which afforded a wonderful but precipitous view of the valley floor down the “not my route” side. Back in town we shared beers and Anwar invited me to dinner with his wife Regine and family. We have remained in touch ever since.
		Another warm up excursion was to the Monte Rosa hut where I checked in for the night. But I couldn’t sleep up there and at 3am gave up the struggle and set off gingerly across the glacier following the path by moonlight. I was down in Zermatt again for brekky. When I ’d done a week of “Wanderwegs” and Bergs the time came to hire my first Guide. An old man took me on to the Rifflehorn and showed me how to walk in crampons on steep rock faces. I was very grateful to him for, without showing any emotion, he also painstakingly showed me how to get into the hired harness a mass of webbing to which the Guide clips his rope. To me these things are like dressing in spaghetti and if I can get it wrong and end with a twisted bit, inside out, biting me in the crutch then I will. Finally, I had the carabiner clip facing in the right direction and off we set.
		There is a wonderful view down to the Monte Rosa glacier from the back of the Rifflehorn but by gum it is steep steep. The natural inclination is to lean back for safety against the rock. But that’s not good. One must get all the crampon teeth into play by staying more at right angles to the slope. This feels like stepping out toward the void. I clearly remember him constantly shouting “Put the whole bootee on the ground” Eventually he said “Jah”, and that was the height of praise. The next thing to do was to get some 4000metre peaks under the belt. I started with the Breithorn. This is really just a stiff walk and I had climbed it several years before on the warm up to a ski mountaineering trek now called The Haute Route.
		On that occasion the team guide had been Ulrich Interbinen, that grand old man of the mountains. Born in Zermatt in 1900 he never left the place and was the proud holder of Swiss Mountain Guides Licence Number 1. That night I put on all the gear to make sure I had the hang of things and went on a practice round my bedroom.
		I was doing rather well until I got stuck getting over the top of the shower at which point the landlady came in to investigate the muffled curses. I had to be at the cable car station at 6.50am the following morning to meet my Guide and I arrived in the nick of time fully accoutered to find myself the laughing stock of lots of bearded fellows as the done thing is to “change” at the top station. I soon wiped off those superior smirks off. A trailing strap jammed in the door mechanism and a fitter had to be found to readjust things before the car would move an inch. Next, I did the chums Castor and Pollux with Roman Imboden and Willy Taugwalder respectively. On Castor there were two punters on the rope behind the guide. The other was a German without any concern for his climbing partner. On numerous occasions when the going got steep and I was standing on one foot swinging the other to the next foothold he would pull on the rope. I didn’t enjoy things at all. He was sporting a natty little titfer with a small feather in it. Eventually, with me sweating and cursing we popped up over the lip of the mountain top. We had climbed without wind but were met with a full gale on the top. The German’s flat hat took off and it was his turn to curse. It went really well like a flying saucer and I secretly hoped it gave game shots great moments all the way to the Mediterranean. Willy Taugwalder is the direct descendent of the man who survived with Whymper on the way down from the first ascent of Matterhorn when the rope broke and the leaders plunged to their deaths. One of my blasted crampon came off as I struggled up a rock chimney on Pollux. Willy got rather bored waiting for me and simply hauled me up on the rope.
		As I ascended by elevator I passed a little Madonna set in a crevice. I am sure she winked, probably relieved that I’d stopped struggling and so removed the danger to her eye from one of my flailing crampon spikes. The Rimfischorn was next on the Menu. It is a longer climb than Matterhorn and starts from the Flualp hut near Sunegga. I slept well in a private room, too well in fact.
		My guide Rudi Stendl woke me at 02.45am and at 3.15 am he had to wake me again. He set off without me and I had to stumble after him still doing things up and without a cup of life. It was a long 6 hours up made worse for lack of visibility and a cold swirling mist so that one couldn’t measure progress.
		But the top was extraordinary. I stood on the pinnacle with my boots in the mist and my head in watery sunshine able to see the tops of several other 4000meter peaks sticking out of the clag like buck teeth from a pasty face. I wanted to climb the Matterhorn with Kurt Lauber with whom I ’d skied in the past. One of the first things I did on arrival in Zermatt was to seek him out to ask him to take me. He said “No thank you, not until the top of the mountain goes black” If there is ice on top then it’s a game for the real pros. Now with my preparations well advanced it was still white on top and for the likes of me the mountain was shut. I had a few days left so I decided to learn the noble art of Parapenting. A Parapente is a banana shaped parachute. Wearing a harness to which the chute is attached you pull the thing up into the prevailing wind. Like flying a kite you stand staring up at the chute until you have the thing riding high. Then, happy that all is well, you run to the edge of the cliff top and keep on running.
		I am at everything a slow learner and first efforts at short glides on a high pasture slope invariably left me in a crashed bundle of body and chute. But I got it eventually and the thrill of being aloft way above Zermatt able to manoeuvre for a sneak foto of the Matterhorn through my airborne legs was magic. Then “Control” started issuing instructions from a one way radio on my sleeve. Control was always anxious because the only landing place the authorities had allowed was behind the railway station. If one got the approach wrong the overhead electric train wires loomed up. I never managed a decent landing but hit the eidelweiss in lieu of the wires and succeeded in gaining a Certificate of which I am very proud. I always intended to buy an old chute, carry it up to the top of The Craigs and beat the dog back down to the garden at Amat. one of these days I swear I will astound my friends by gliding into breakfast.
		The Matterhorn looks so majestic because it stands somewhat alone and dominates the valley. It has its own micro weather system. Often when there is no cloud to be seen anywhere else, a trail of what looks like smoke is coming off the top. This is condensation from airflow forced upward on hitting the flanks of the mountain. Although the weather was wonderful all around Zermatt during my stay, the Matterhorn peak never did go black; it never opened, my time was up, I could stay no longer and had to go home. Two years later I tried again. There was a bomb alert on the Tube which stopped a mile short of Heathrow in the final tunnel. The electric was turned off and we all jumped down to the tracks to hike the rest of the way. I threw my not inconsiderable bag down into the black and there was a feminine squeak. I had dropped it on to a coal black girl. A good meeting however as the bag was bad to carry and the wheels ineffective on the clinker. The girl simply put it on her head, she was a tribal Abyssinian used to balancing water jugs and such on her topknot. I was extremely grateful and when we parted, she made me promise that, if successful, she would get the first call. It was a struggle going through all that acclimatisation stuff again and all those high level walks.
		Then the Guides office rang to say “It has to be to-night for there is a long period of uncertain weather coming in after to-morrow”. I really wanted another 2-3 days and could see that my times in the hut visiting books were not yet as good as they had been in the past. I decided to go for it but to insist on my own pace. I walked up to the Matterhorn hut at the base of the Hornli ridge arriving as the sun set and there I met my Guide Petrig. What with the excitement, uncomfortable bed, dossing down in ones clothes, a complete with thunder claps and a bunch of well meaning people hissing “SSSSSSH peoples are sleeping ” in German, I didn’t sleep a wink. Anyway, we were up again for jam and bread around 2.45 am and then stepped out into the dark. The light from the doorway shown onto 75 Guides. 75 coils of rope, 75 punters and 150 head torches the whole lot alive and milling around, jockeying for position. It was like some bizarre movie set and then we were off and the torches began to form a chain of fairy lights up the black pyramid set in the midnight blue of the sky. I went well on adrenalin but was hoping for time out at the little emergency hut the Solvay an hour and some into the climb . But not a bit of it, Petrig strode past and attacked the sheer wall behind. Then halfway up we did stop to put on crampons and all extra clothing. The latter was required by a blizzard; in August for goodness sake.! Several turned back. I was for that until greeted by the huge beard of a Swiss guide Serge Lambert with whom I had done many ski tours. He simply materialized from no-where full of beans and I thought “I can’t turn back until he disappears into the cloud”. So now, wearing every stitch of extra clothing from my haversack, we pushed on through the cold cloud with Petrig shouting against the elements “KumonJorni, Kumon” That went on for hours and then suddenly be bellowed “SstoppJorni, STOP”. I cracked. I ’d had more than quite enough and shouted back at him. “You’ve been bawling come on for 4 Fxxxxx hours why the Fxxx do you want to stop now? Lets get it done for Christ's sake.” He just laughed and said “BecosJorni, one more step and you vil be in Cervinia Italy on yor arse”. Extraordinary, I thought he was joking.
		Then like the ghost appearing to Hamlet on the battlements, a bronze Madonna showed up through the swirling cold cloud. We had the hand shake and I swigged the rest of my water bottle of cold tea. It all seemed completely unreal, I hadn’t banked on this result at all, with no dawn to admire.
		We didn’t stay long but as we prepared to reverse, another two heads appeared. The punter was an American real estate magnate called Crumpacher. He’d hired a guide for his son who was charged with carrying the video and another for his daughter who had the camera. They had both turned back and he was desperate for photographic proof. We edged past each other and I took his mug shot holding a banner he produced which said something like “ CRUMPACHER Inc All your Realty problems solved. Call Toll Free blab la bla, MATTERHORN FOR SALE “. He wanted to buy the camera and then the film and then offered me a trip in the prestigious Royal Scot train that trundles round the Highlands in summer. I should have stayed in touch.
		They say the day on the Matterhorn begins when you get to the top. For one is tired and it is easy to get a tiny bit careless thinking “I’ve done it”. It is essential to keep the concentration going, especially as you are now the leader with the Guide behind you. In a way the weather was a boon for there was no vertigo worry and off I set, stepping outwards like a real pro Jah, Jah. Then the weather improved and SUDDENLY, about where Whymper’s men fell off, the cloud cleared and one felt like an ant on a very tall ceiling with a fantastic view.
		A real “champagne moment” and another was the first beer in the Hornli hut where Serge (whose client had decided to turn back) was the first to thump me on the back. In my room in Zermatt having had no sleep for over 30 hours tiredness suddenly took over. I sat on the bed weekly struggling with my boot, knots which seemed glued together with rock dust and water. I gave up and stepped into the shower fully dressed staying there for ages drinking the water and feeling it trickling through everything. Next day, having midday breakfast on the street, I could not believe Il’d gone up that thing right in front of me. There was a lot of “smoke” jetting out from the top and it was clearly blowing hard. My timing was very fortunate and so was I.
		Jonny Shaw, Amat. April 06

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