Zermatt & the Matterhorn

Zermatt is a village of black wooden chalets at the end of a valley, without cars, under the most recognized mountain on Earth: the Matterhorn, 4,478 metres, a pyramid so exact that it became the shape a child draws when asked for a mountain, and the one on the chocolate box. It was first climbed in 1865 by a party of seven of whom four fell on the descent, and the village keeps their graves by the church; it has been Europe's most complete mountain resort since — a rack railway to the Gornergrat's view of twenty-nine four-thousanders, the highest cable-car station on the continent at the Klein Matterhorn, glaciers, three hundred and sixty kilometres of piste that cross into Italy, and, at dawn, a summit that turns pink while the whole village looks up.

The traveller leaves the car at Täsch and takes the shuttle train up; walks the village's one street of shops and chalets to the church and the climbers' cemetery; rides the Gornergrat railway at first light for the mountain, the Gorner glacier and the row of peaks; goes up to the Klein Matterhorn's Glacier Paradise to stand at 3,883 metres in summer snow; walks in summer to the mirror lakes of Sunnegga and Riffelsee, where the mountain repeats itself; skis in winter across three valleys and one border; and eats fondue in a hut on the way down, because the mountains are the reason for the cheese.

The Guide's honesty: Zermatt is Swiss and a resort and priced accordingly — the mountain railways alone are a serious budget line, and the passes are worth calculating —; the mountain hides in cloud for days at a time and shows itself, when it does, mostly at dawn, so more than one night is the honest plan; the altitude at the top stations is real and the sun on snow is fierce; the village is car-free but not silent, and the electric taxis have the right of way; and the mountain has claimed more than five hundred lives — it is for looking at, and for climbing only with a guide and a reason.