Steven's Peak-bagging Journey

August 18-19, 2025

4478m

Zermatt, Switzerland/Italy

Matterhorn, the most iconic peak in the Alps as well as one of the highest in the range, does not need much introduction. This is one of the most sought after objective in the world, that even your mom, dad, sisters and co-workers should’ve at least heard of such a peak. The lesser known Italian name of this peak is Monte Cervino and the French name is Mont Cervin. Needless to say when I started to plan this month-long trip to the Alps I was setting Matterhorn as the primary objective, but weather, condition and the availability of the partners and Hörnli Hut must line up. Nevertheless one month is more than enough for the buffer. Adam would not be joining me on this objective but Erica and Caspar in a separate vehicle were game for the challenge. They also had the entire month completely free of obligation and could pull the trigger with indefinite amount of flexibility. This is actually the #1 most important thing when I choose partners for important climbs like Matterhorn or some of the Rockies’ 11,000ers. I require the entire team to be able to bail everything, anything in life to go for it with short notice, as soon as that “perfect window” forms. No work, no kids, no nothing, only the mountains matter!

Over the past several months we had been debating between the standard (easiest) Hörnli Ridge vs. the second easiest which is Lion’s Ridge (SW Ridge) from the Italian side. My vote had always been Hörnli Ridge because I’m not scared of the length/scale of the commitment or the seriousness of route-finding. The Lion’s Ridge is shorter but with more technical pitches including more hauling on fixed gears in vertical terrain (official grade is about 5.7), and that does not suit well with my expertise. I could do 4th and low 5th class for all day but prefer minimal amount of “mid 5th”. The hut on Lion’s Ridge is also less fancy, that one would have to haul food, water and overnight gears up to 3800 m, and that could not be my preference neither. The downside of the Swiss side (Hörnli Ridge) is the crowds and the cost, but this was not my first time climbing these world class popular objectives. The cost was the major issue for my partners but not a problem for myself, and the crowding issues could not be worse than Mt. Everest. In the end I won the debate. Well, there was really not much of a “debate” anymore because the Italians had closed the Lion’s Ridge hut for the season for whatever reasons. I noticed that “perfect window” forming about a week prior to the climb and immediately booked the Hörnli Hut for myself for one night. The weekend’s time frame was already sold out but I could choose between Sunday/Monday or Monday/Tuesday. I put my bid on the latter but in retrospect, the window was the most bomber for the former. The Tuesday morning’s window ended up being slightly windier but was still more than good enough. There’s no fresh snow whatsoever on the entire route so the climbing should be as easy as it could ever get. Erica and Caspar finally made the decision a few days later, but the hut was full, but that’s not the end of the game. Over these years I had become very experienced in this kind of situation so we together laid out a plan that I was 100% sure would work, but I’m not going to share that in this trip report, nor upon request. For those curious about the cost, the train from Täsch to Zermatt was 18 CHF round trip, the gondola from Zermatt to Schwarzsee was 68 CHF round trip, and Hörnlihütte was 154 CHF per person, per night. The half board (breakfast and dinner) is included and mandatory.

I was more acclimatized than Erica/Caspar because I had been doing more peaks over 3000 m in the past few weeks, so I was a little bit concerned about their acclimatization plan to do Matterhorn in a single shot from the valley bottom. I then remembered there’s a tough “Ultra” called Ortles in the Tyrolian Alps that was too difficult for Adam so I hadn’t put in much thoughts about. I mentioned that to Erica and Caspar and by pure miracle there were room for three for Saturday/Sunday in Payer Hut. The forecast was 50/50 but we dug out some last minute condition report indicating the route (particularly the glacier) was still in. This was great because we would all spend one night at 3000 m and then climb to 3900 m. The downside was the lack of rest as I would have absolutely zero “rest day” between Ortles and Matterhorn and there’s 6+ hours of driving between the two, but that’s not a problem for me. The climb of Ortles went without event and then Adam and I pushed 4.5 hours westwards on Sunday evening and camped next to the road in tents. Erica and Caspar didn’t push that far but they had a different itinerary. The next morning Adam and I continued driving into the village of Täsch and I got dropped off at the train station. Adam would resume his westwards driving for another 4.5 hours to bag some “ultras” in France, while waiting for me climbing the Matterhorn. I loaded more-than-necessary amount of food because Zermatt and vicinity is one of, if not the most expensive place on Earth when it comes to the cost of living. I wanted to minimize the time spent there. I also didn’t want to pay any extra shit in Hörnli Hut because I knew these European huts are trying their hardest to rip us off.

Zermatt is not accessible by private vehicle so that’s why I got dropped off in Täsch. The cheapest way to get to Zermatt was by train and that’s exactly how I did. I then walked straight through the village of Zermatt to the gondola station without buying anything. The walk took about 15 minutes. I was not surprised by the expensive gondola ticket as this is in Switzerland but on an intense day-after-day itinerary I had no other choice. If I live in the area I would probably choose to hike an extra 900 m elevation gain to avoid paying the lift, but I have to say that having the downloading ticket for the return was definitely the nicest thing. I don’t know how much would that cost to only purchase the down ticket. I would assume it’s more than half the price just like on Zugspitze a week earlier. In any case I got lifted to Schwartzee (2550 m) in no time. I immediately began the short approach towards Hornli Hut but did take my time as my pack was heavy with the rope and extra food. The scenery was also excellent so I stopped many times for photos. I eventually got to the hut in just under 2 hours. They were very strict about the 2 pm check-in time so I had to wait for almost 3 hours to get my bed, but meanwhile I might as well load up some carbs. While sitting in the picnic area I got recognized by two Seattle climbers (Qian and Coco) so we spent the rest of the day together. We also did a practice lap up the “first step” to get familiarize with the route which was sort of fun. The dinner was served at 7 pm and was sort of like a buffet because I could load up more after finishing the plate. I wasn’t aware nor planning for that so only managed to eat 1.5 portions, which was a bit disappointing. It’s also mandatory for us to bring our own sleeping bag liner but that’s the only overnight gear we needed. One does not need to bring sleeping bag, tent, mattress, food, water nor stove/pot for overnight stays in Europe. The cost for buying bottled water was 10 CHF per 1.5 L but I knew that based on the recent experience in the other huts. I simply took the chance and relied (entirely) on the toilet water for these hut days. My suggestion for “dirt bags” reading this trip report is to bring your filter or tabs for some extra sense of security.

The hut was in full capacity and my dorm of 6 was completely filled. The night was very hot that I had to strip off all cloths and was still sweating. As a result I didn’t get very good sleep, but that’s fine. I had been used to operating big days with absolutely zero sleep so getting 3 hours of sleep was already a bonus. The breakfast was served at 4 am and the guided parties were leaving at 4:30 am. I knew the rules of this hut and I was expecting to leave at the end of the conga line made of 100+ climbers, but I also sort of knew that these European clients are fast. I hadn’t encountered “inexperienced parties” so far on these trips and indeed, everybody on Matterhorn was moving at a blistering pace. Asides two of three solo climbers we were the only team out there without a guide. Erica and Caspar showed up at 4:30 am as expected. The only major delay we had was at the bottom of the “first step” where we stood for about 15 minutes without moving, but other than that, we never really queued much. My strategy was actually to follow these guided parties to eliminate our own route-finding especially in the dark, but we had to make sure the party in front of us was not “falling behind”. Once the party started to fall back we had to pass them to catch up to the next. For one occasion this resulted in about 10 minutes of route-finding in the dark by myself, which was kind of rough. The lower route was mostly class 3 with some harder steps here and there. The horizon started to show some colours as we made steady progress up towards Sölvey Hut and we got the first taste of sun beams while soloing up the Lower Mosserly Slabs, which in my opinion was the technical crux of the route. This was one odd difficult section without fixed lines. To avoid congestion was followed a guided party staying on the far climber’s right, and the climbing was at least 5.4 for some moves. By this point we had passed at least 30 climbers but we took a reasonable break at Sölvey Hut (4000m) donning sun screen and eating some food. We got passed back by at least 15 climbers, suggesting that the guides would not “allow” their clients taking any necessary break. We thought that was very harsh. These clients were looking miserably and mountaineering shouldn’t mean being leashed like a doggo. I personally will never be leashed on class 3/4 terrain. It’s either proper pitched climbing, or free soloing/scrambling, period.

Resuming the climb we immediately faced one challenging pitch with one awkward 5th class move right off the bat, but the difficulty eased off afterwards. There was a bit of congestion here but we all managed to solo around these roped-up parties. Then we had some ridge scrambling before the infamous traverse on the “upper Moserly Slabs”. I guess there are a few ways of doing that but we chose the most obvious one, jugging up one vertical juicy fixed rope followed by batmaning up the leftwards traverse. The exposure was insane and the footholds were next to nothing. This was the mental crux for me as I was not very experienced in this European styled climbing. I ended up girth-hitching myself to the fixed rope using a prusik, but it was very awkward in the transition point, and the prusik had created too much friction. Caspar did it with ease without any added security. Erica was trying to do my way but eventually gave up and just soloed it. We were then on the 4200 m “shoulder” where most parties would have to don crampons in “normal conditions”. The route was as dry as it could ever be, so the crampons wouldn’t be needed until above the “upper fixed lines”.

We encountered multiple vertical or slightly overhanging steps with no feet on the “upper fixed lines” so hauling ourselves up using purely biseps muscle was unavoidable. I never felt insecure because the ropes were simply too juicy to lose grips, but I do lack the upper body strength for this type of jugging. As mentioned earlier, these European clients are incredibly fast (or fit I should say), that it was very difficult to catch up and pass a bunch of them on the ascent. We started to encounter hordes of traffic coming down the route and there was fair amount of congestion as a result. I got into some major arguing with a guide and also got kicked with crampons by one of the client, taking a fall while being lowered. I thankfully was not standing on that leg as otherwise it could result in injury. Nevertheless I got two holes in my pants and marks on my lower leg like the dog bite I got in Peru. I was quite pissed by the situation but I was in the middle of a vertical pitch, free soloing while holding my life on the fixed line. There’s nothing I could do other than swearing loudly and forcing my way up the queue like what I normally would do in China before 2008. Erica and Caspar also did the same though perhaps sans the swearing part. There was one chain with one piece of horizontal bar that’s sort of memorable because I did use that chain and also temporarily secured myself to that. The juicy vertical ropes, on the other hand, could not offer much security in case of a fall. We then strapped the crampons on at the very last possible spot, right underneath the “snow field” which was mostly several pitches of ice/mixed with cut steps. I took the ice axe out but Erica and Caspar managed to solo the ice section without ice axes. It wasn’t too bad for us Canadians to be honest, that in no time we arrived at the (higher) Swiss summit. This place was seriously crowed and the true highest point was also a cornice and there was nowhere to sit down. We did plan to traverse to the Italian summit but in situation like this, we were also “forced” to make the traverse to have some sort of private time. The traverse was not nearly as bad as I thought. Most parties did not come over or only stopped at the religious cross, so we had the Italian summit to ourselves for about half an hour. Meanwhile we were watching those clients being leashed to the top of Matterhorn and then immediately down. They had no break on the summit whatsoever. The guides were in some huge rush.

Due to the concern of the weather system pushing in in the late afternoon as well as the 4:20 pm cut-off time for the gondola we couldn’t stay up there forever. Having 30 minutes of resting was more than enough so we quickly traversed back to the Swiss summit and then joined the conga line for descending. There were still people coming up but not many. I unfortunately didn’t see our Seattle friends so they must have been frustratingly turned back by the guides. When it comes to the descent the three of us here were finally much quicker than most of the guided parties as the descent was never about the fitness. Erica and Caspar did some impressive work front-pointing down the cut steps so we never needed to belay for the ice/mixed section, and then we all soloed down the “upper fixed lines”. For many occasions I was holding completely on the juicy batman ropes and I have to say that it was feeling quite strange, but this wasn’t my first time doing that. On Everest the situation was similar, and the only difference was the diameter of the ropes – the 6 mm static lines in the Himalayas vs. the juicy twisted batman rope of at least 2 cm diameter in Europe.

We had caught up and passed a lot of the parties by then, and continued scrambling down the exposed ridge line. I was thinking to rappel that infamous “hand traverse” on batman rope but we decided in situ to solo it. The descent was actually not too bad but I did also secure myself to the rope, but in a different way than girth-hitching. We also down-soloed that difficult step above Solvey Hut so the only place where we took the rope out was the rappel off the lower Moserly Slabs. Having a 48-m rope meant we could make a single rappel off the section without any tricky down-climbing. The toilet situation in Solvey Hut was extremely gross but it couldn’t be worse than Everest’s C2. I thankfully did not have to go in to experience that myself so the story was only told by my partner. There was no more rappelling afterwards so I took off at some point. I caught up to a lot of guided parties and I wanted to play the game of laziness to just follow behind as I was getting mentally drained. The guides had other thoughts and always wanted me to pass so I did have to do fair amount of route-finding myself, which was tricky but not too bad in daytime. I consulted with the GPX a few times in questionable area. My overall hut-to-hut time was 8 hours which was not bad at all. Erica and Caspar showed up about 10 minutes later and we took a much-needed hour-long break in the hut, repacking and eating the food that I had brought up. Eventually we left the hut and jogged down to Schwartzee, concluding the round trip in under 11 hours (sans hut time). My moving time was only 5 hours 45 minutes however, suggesting fair amount of waiting here and there even though there was only one or two major delays in the entire day.

We then took the tram down to Zermatt. My friends from Seattle were already back in their hotel in Zermatt and kindly invited me to join their dinner, but the dinner was booked for 6 pm. We had about 2.5 hours to kill in Zermatt but I took that as an oppourtunity to explore this expensive place. Eventually Erica and Caspar left Zermatt in favour for some cheaper food elsewhere, whereas I went to Du Pont for a much needed dinner. It was the first proper dinner I had in about 3 weeks so I greatly appreciated that. Meanwhile the weather system finally rolled in, dumping copious amount of rain. I also got a much needed shower in Qian/Coco’s room before running down to the train station to catch the ride down to Täsch. Adam had finished his peakbagging mission in France and were aiming to be in Täsch at 7:30 pm. This worked out perfectly. Adam and I continued the road trip, now in pissing rain. We eventually found one place to pitch our tents but the pitching was done in the rain. I don’t think anyone would prefer such a miserable way to “celebrate” a successful Matterhorn climb, but we are fairly cheap, that finding a hotel in Switzerland was simply too luxurious.