Valtournenche Matterhorn

The Matterhorn is a mountain in the Western Alps mountain range, unmistakable for its typical pyramidal shape.
Disputed halfway between Switzerland and the Aosta Valley, this mountain is 4478 m.a.s.l. high and towers unchallenged over all other peaks and the villages at its foot: tomorrow to the south over Breuil-Cervinia in Italy and to the north over Zermatt, a popular Swiss resort.
The Matterhorn is closely associated with the evolution of mountaineering: for many decades the summit of this mountain was considered unattainable because of its particularly steep walls.
During the 19th century there were many attempts to climb to the summit of the Matterhorn, but for a long time no one was successful in this endeavor.
The first to conquer the tip of the Matterhorn was the English mountaineer Edward Whymper who, in 1865, succeeded in climbing the pyramidal mountain with his six companions.
The seven intrepid companions conquered the summit at 1:40 p.m. on July 14, 1865.
The Matterhorn is the star of this great victory, but it is also the star of a terrible tragedy that occurred just a short time later.
On their return, in fact, Edward Whymper and the other mountaineers faced a baleful and particularly complicated descent, which caused two of them to lose their balance, which dragged two other climbing companions toward the Matterhorn glacier.
There were only three survivors: Whymper, Taugwalder and his son.
This event was both a grand achievement and a tragic misfortune: the Matterhorn accident of 1865 is remembered as the first great tragedy in modern mountaineering.
Even today, the conquest of the Matterhorn holds great fascination for ambitious climbers, but the ascent to the summit is reserved only for experienced mountaineers.