Mark Boulton

Mrs B and I are on our annual jaunt to the Alps for a spot of snow­board­ing. This year we’re stay­ing in the, rather large, Swiss town of Zer­matt which is nestled in a val­ley under­neath the beau­ti­ful Mat­ter­horn. The snow is not great at the moment. And it’s rain­ing here in the vil­lage which is mak­ing every­where covered in a thin, almost invis­ible, coat­ing of ice. Put­ting the snow­board­ing aside for a moment, this place is rather spe­cial for one reason: The Matterhorn.

The other day, when Mrs B was off on her birth­day treat (a mas­sage at the rather grand Zer­mat­ter­hof hotel), I had an hour to kill so went with my dad and brother to the Mat­ter­horn museum to soak up the moun­tain­eer­ing atmo­sphere. It didn’t dis­ap­point. I’ve been an arm­chair moun­tain­eer­ing enthu­si­ast for a good few years now, so com­ing to the home of the Mat­ter­horn and sur­round­ing peaks (there are six of the top ten highest moun­tains in Europe in plain view from here) was some­thing I was really look­ing for­ward to. 

The Mat­ter­horn. The view from our chalet on the out­skirts of Zer­matt in Winkelmatten

The Mat­ter­horn is a stun­ning peak. It was con­sidered unclimb­able until, after 13 (or was it 12) failed attempts, Eng­lish­man Edward Whym­per sum­mit­ted the peak in July of 1865. Four of the party of seven climbers were killed on the des­cent when they fell and the rope which held them all together snapped. Since then, the Mat­ter­horn has been sum­mit­ted count­less times and a rel­at­ively exper­i­enced climber can be guided to the top.

I’d love to be able to do it. How­ever, I’m scared to death of heights. Some­times, I think I’m ok, like the other day when me, my wife and brother took the cable car up to Klein Mat­ter­horn and climbed up to the exposed view­ing plat­form at nearly 4000 metres. Stun­ning views, and I’m sure I would have really enjoyed them if not for the fact of the abyssal cliff faces on three sides of the plat­form. I wanted to jump off. That is what ver­tigo feels like. I was light-headed, and was not happy about going near the edge. It is because of this, that I couldn’t pos­sibly be a mountaineer. 

The snow­board­ing has been pretty good this year. We both have new, more advanced boards which are hold­ing up well in the con­di­tions. Zer­matt itself is ok, but I think it’s more skier friendly and there is cer­tainly a feel­ing of skier/snowboarder rivalry. After the impress­ive ski in/ski out facil­it­ies of Les Arc last year—and the incred­ible snow—it’s frus­trat­ing hav­ing to walk for twenty minutes with all your gear and then have to catch three lifts to get up the top. Typ­ical bloody North­erner; always moaning.

So, only one more day left and it looks like the weather may clear a little and we’ll have a day on the gla­cier before we leave on Sunday. Then it’s back to work. Great.