“For me, it is clear that Edward Whymper glossed this situation in his favour.” Reinhold Messner
“The people only know this version of the story.” Reinhold Messner
The first ascent of the Matterhorn
On 14 July 150 years ago one of the most daring and dramatic first ascents in the history of the Alps came to an end: the Englishman Edward Whymper, who had set off from Zermatt, reached the summit of the 4478 metre high Matterhorn before his opponent Jean-Antoine Carrel, who had set out from the Italian side. But during the descent four members of the seven-man expedition led by Whymper fell to their deaths – after a rope broke. However, Whymper managed to make his name internationally famous as a heroic Alpine climber with his version of the Matterhorn drama, although circumstances and questions of culpability for the fall have still not been accounted for today.
“The whole thing could only be salvaged because Taugwalder Sr tied the rope around a craggy rock.” Reinhold Messner
“This accusation is a crime that tainted the Taugwalders.” Reinhold Messner
Peter Taugwalder Sr
Zermatt mountain guide Peter Taugwalder Sr was a key figure in the Whymper team. It was only thanks to his mountaineering expertise that the ambitious Whymper succeeded in his historical Matterhorn expedition at all. But: the rope snapped just below Taugwalder, so he had not been able to prevent the fatal drop of his falling comrades – and Whymper had been able to place the main responsibility for the tragic outcome on him in his legendary book about the first ascent. “The public only knows Whymper’s version, and for me it is clear that he has glossed over the situation,” says the
South Tyrolean mountain climbing legend Reinhold Messner. Peter Taugwalder suffered all his life under the burden of the tragic Matterhorn ascent.
“I always wondered if everything really happened that way.” Matthias Taugwalder
“That was the reason to start my search.” Matthias Taugwalder
150 years after
What remains after 150 years? Can the circumstances of the tragedy still be reconstructed? The Zermatt multimedia journalist Matthias Taugwalder, photographer of spectacular 360-degree panoramic images of alpine peaks, is a direct descendent of the famous mountain guide. For the 150th anniversary, he has launched intensive research with the aim of finding out what really happened in that first ascent. He interviewed descendants of those first climbers and thanks to digitisation processes he could access archive material that has never been viewed before.