Mystery On A Mountain Top

White-faced and shaking, young Friedrich Taugwalder burst into the Monte Rosa Hotel in Zermatt, pocket telescope in hand and shouted, "An avalanche! On the Matterhorn!" His elders scolded him for spouting such hysterical nonsense. An avalanche in mid-July? From that bare rock face? Impossible. They were right, of course. Friedrich's "avalanche" was not an avalanche at all. Merely four human bodies hurtling down from near the mountain's summit to a ghastly death on the glacier 4,000 feet below. It was July 14, 1865, and 15-year-old Friedrich had witnessed one of the most extraordinary accidents in the annals of mountaineering. It cost four men's lives and wrecked the reputations of the two surviving guides—young Friedrich's own father and brother. But from it, a third survivor, Edward Whymper, the man whose pigheaded impetuosity may have caused the disaster, achieved fame, fortune, and a still standing reputation as one of the great mountaineers of all time.

In the 1860s most men were convinced that the Matterhorn was impregnable. Local legend held that evil spirits dwelt on the gaunt, towering presence looming over the Swiss village of Zermatt and the hamlet of Breuil across the Italian border. A four-sided rock pyramid standing some 14,800 feet in noble isolation with a banner of cloud usually streaming from its peak, the mountain had about it a sinister, haunting quality that affected all who dwelt below. Its faces were swept by violent winds and sudden, terrible rockfalls; and because of its sheerness, the slightest mistake meant certain death to anyone attempting its ascent. No wonder that even in the golden age of mountaineering, the Matterhorn was one of the last great peaks still unconquered.

Two men, however, had an impassioned faith that this defiant mountain could be climbed, and each came to believe it was his God-given destiny to be the first to reach its peak. One was Jean-Antoine Carrel, a former bersagliere, or Italian sharpshooter. The other was the gifted, lonely young English artist, Edward Whymper, who arrived in Zermatt in 1860 to make drawings and engravings of the Alps for a travel book.

On his first visit, this 20-year-old who had scarcely ever seen a mountain before was content merely to gaze with his queer, burning eyes. The following year he went on a tentative climb, and the challenge of that black, uncompromising peak cast a spell on him which was to transform his life. Young Whymper became convinced that (his was his mountain—and he determined to fit himself to conquer it. By the time he was 25 the inexperienced lad had become one of the most skillful mountaineers of his day.

For three years Carrel and Whymper pitted their wits against the mountain which so obsessed them; time and again, they risked their lives. Sometimes they climbed separately; sometimes together.

Theirs became an admiring, jealous love-hate relationship; each man reluctantly recognizing that he needed the other's skill to make a successful ascent, yet each feeling the mountain to be peculiarly his own. In 1861 Carrel climbed farther up the Matterhorn than any man had been before and carved his initials on the rock face. The following year Whymper surpassed this height, reaching 13,400 feet and chiseled his own arrogant mark: E.W.A.L., which stood for Edward Whymper Alone.

During the descent from this solitary climb, Whymper fell 200 feet and was nearly killed by a terrifying avalanche of rocks. Recovering from that fall, depressed, injured and friendless, he swore that he would never fail to look after any other Englishman who might find himself ill in the region. It was a vow that would have its bearing on the fateful events of July 1865.

Seven times in five years Whymper tried the climb from the Italian side of the mountain and was beaten back. Then at last his keen artist's perceptiveness of color and plane made him realize that snow lay all summer on the apparently vertical east face on the Swiss side. Could the snow linger there, he asked himself, if the cliff were really so sheer? He studied the shape of the Italian side of the mountain and saw that the rock strata leaned outward; logically he concluded that the east face probably shelved inward, making a giant natural staircase on which the snow would lie. He therefore determined on an attempt on the east face, and once again engaged Carrel as his guide. Carrel disliked the idea of climbing from Switzerland but agreed to accompany Whymper. It was July 9, 1865; the weather was fair; all looked set for a successful attempt.

Then Whymper heard that a visiting Englishman was lying sick in the valley. Remembering his vow and his own misery when he lay sick and alone, he delayed his climb for a couple of days while he hiked 20 miles to get medicine for the ill man. In doing so, Whymper lost all chance of climbing with Carrel, for the Italian had meanwhile been engaged as a guide by what he described as "a family of distinction." Whymper imagined this was a party of lady tourists and jokingly protested, "That isn't fit work for you." Carrel smiled enigmatically. It was only after the guide had left the hotel that Whymper discovered the truth. Carrel had set off, not with a group of strolling ladies, but with two of the finest mountaineers of the newly formed Italian Alpine Club—and their plan was to climb the Matterhorn from the Italian side. Carrel's heart had been so overjoyed at an offer to climb with Italians, for the glory of his country, that he had let Whymper down. Not only that, but the Italian party, realizing the threat from Whymper, had taken with them all the most expert guides.

Enraged at this conspiracy, and actually weeping with fury and vexation, Whymper ransacked the town of Breuil looking for guides and he found Lord Francis Douglas, an 18-year-old English aristocrat, the son of the Marquis of Queensberry. With only two years climbing experience behind him, Lord Francis was going to make an attempt at the mountain with a guide named Peter Taugwalder, an indifferent mountaineer. Taugwalder had made mistakes on past climbs, and the Matterhorn was certainly no place for mistakes. But Whymper was desperate and determined, and he arranged that Douglas and Taugwalder should climb with him. When they arrived at Zermatt they found a superbly skilled guide, Michel Croz, sitting on the low stone wall outside the Monte Rosa Hotel, which was the traditional rendezvous of mountaineers. The question was, could he be persuaded to join them?