Pioneering Years in the Shadow of the Matterhorn

Majestic and breathtaking, it juts up into the sky like a giant pyramid with scarily steep sides. Any child in the local area will be able to tell you that the mountain is 4478 metres above sea level at its peak. Zermatt’s landmark gives off an incredible energy that you can sense when it is hidden behind the clouds on a grey and gloomy day. “The Matterhorn never stops having an impact on you – even when it has been the backdrop to your life for decades. It changes in the moment, with different colours being reflected in different light,” says André Seiler, General Manager of the Hotel Mont Cervin Palace, a family-run business in its fifth generation.

Long before crowds of tourists started flocking to Zermatt, courageous mountaineers became obsessed with the idea of conquering this spectacular peak with its impressive topographic prominence of 1031 metres. There were 18 attempts at climbing to the top of the Matterhorn between 1857 and 1865, but none of them were successful. That is until Brit Edward Whymper refused to give up on his quest. Not even a fall of 60 metres was enough to put him off. On 14 July 1865 at 13:40, he finally stood right at the top of the mountain as the leader of a rope team of seven. He had started his challenging journey in Zermatt on 12 July and taken the route via the Hörnligrat. Sadly, that’s not the end of the story. Four of Whymper’s cohort paid the ultimate price for their mountain triumph and lost their lives on the way back down.

Ever since, there has been an air of fascination and fear surrounding the elevated mountain region. If you ever visit the Matterhorn Museum, make sure you take a look at the safety rope used in the daring first climb. A shiver may well run down your spine. But this museum just by the church in the centre of the village has so much more to offer than just the Matterhorn. It takes visitors all the way back to 1850, when Zermatt was but a simple farming village, offering a glimpse into the old houses and the lives of people back then, including farming families, tradesmen who used to cross the Alps with laden pack animals, mountain guides and mountaineers who travelled from far and wide. The hotel trade really kicked off in Zermatt back in 1839, when surgeon Josef Lauber opened a guest house with six guest beds. In 1852, State Councillor Josef Anton Clemenz from Visp followed suit with 14 beds at the Hotel Mont Cervin.

And yet Alexander Seiler had the biggest impact on Zermatt back in the day. Born in 1819, he and his brother Franz took over the accommodation from Josef Lauber in 1853 and reopened it as the Hotel Monte Rosa in 1855. By the time Seiler died in 1891, he had amassed a small empire consisting of the Mont Cervin, the Zermatterhof and the Grandhotel Riffelalp with an unbeatable view of the Matterhorn. “Sure, decadently luxurious hotels with a huge focus on wellness are wonderful and all that. But do you know what they don’t have that the traditional Zermatt establishments have in spades? Personality!” says André Seiler, a direct descendant of the visionary himself. Seiler’s favourite spot at the Mont Cervin Palace is the lobby bar, where the open fire crackles and the pianist tinkles the ivories. “Peak season here is in the winter and the atmosphere is unique, reserved just for this type of establishment,” he says.

Words Alex Kühn