The Matterhorn up close
A vast rock wall instead of the distant pyramid.
Björn S... — CC BY-SA 2.0 · Björn S... — CC BY-SA 2.0 · Björn S. — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Tiia Monto — CC BY-SA 3.0
Schwarzsee is a small dark lake at 2,552 metres, and **the closest point an ordinary visitor can get to the foot of the Matterhorn itself**: from its shore the mountain rises before you as a vast, very near wall, at a completely different angle from the distant Gornergrat views — here you do not see the elegant pyramid but the huge rock mass up close. On its shore stands a small white chapel (Maria zum Schnee, "Mary of the Snow") built in the early eighteenth century in fulfilment of a vow by two Zermatt men saved after losing their way in fog on the Theodul Glacier, and it makes one of Zermatt's best-loved images: a little chapel, a still lake and the Matterhorn behind them. From here begins the **Hörnli trail**, which climbs to the Hörnli hut (3,260 m, built in 1880) — today's base for climbing the Matterhorn, standing on the Hörnli ridge by which the first ascent was made in 1865. The walk to the hut is about two hours up, hard but feasible for the reasonably fit, or you can walk down to Furi and Zermatt instead.
A vast rock wall instead of the distant pyramid.
An early-18th-century shrine on the dark lake's shore.
The route to the Matterhorn climbing base.
Schwarzsee, 3920 Zermatt
On 14 July 1865 the Englishman Edward Whymper and six companions reached the summit for the first time after years of attempts — but on the descent the rope broke and four of them fell to their deaths. The accident shook Europe and made the Matterhorn a legend; the guide Michel Croz lies in **the mountaineers' cemetery** beside the parish church, Hudson and Hadow at St Peter's, the English Church, and Lord Francis Douglas's body was never found. The Matterhorn Museum in the village displays the broken rope itself.