It's the epicenter of all things alpinism; where technical mountaineering began. The iconic shape, and stand-alone beauty remove any question as to what you are looking at. It's the result of thousands of years of glaciers tearing away at its shoulders and leaving a steep, jagged monolith. These peaks of prominence attract climbers from around the globe. Ask a five-year-old to draw a mountain, and they will grab the nearest crayon and depict the Matterhorn.

​The Switzerland trek with my wife, Dana, and three of our friends was magical. Beginning in Grindelwald we hiked for ten days over mountain passes, ending in Kandersteg. In the back of my mind lay the Matterhorn, I hoped it would deliver an exclamation point to an already perfect trip.
 
To some it seems silly, chasing these summits around the world, climbing, and risking.
 
Not to me.

​And, it's not so much about the summit, but the quality of life in the months leading up to a goal. I packed a summer's worth of Colorado cliffs, trails, and 14ers under my belt as training.

​Rock climbing in Chamonix, France was the final warm up. My climbing partner was Gabriel, a friend of friends, and a guide himself. We climbed a 15-pitch arete that followed a ridgeline high above the valley. Steep pitches on the right or left gave way to the spine, and led to the exposure that alpinists thrive on.

The Matterhorn in the Swiss Alps, about as iconic as it gets.

Author Matt Tredway nabs a rocky peak over Chamonix, France.

The day let us get comfortable with each other's style and techniques. His only comment: “Where is the joy?"
 
Taken aback, l exclaimed, "I couldn't have loved that anymore! What are you saying?"
 
"No, no, no..." Gabriel explained, "It's the clothes. You Americans wear black and brown…Are you driving for UPS? Splash in some color! Love a little!" He ended with an easy laugh. I glanced at our attire, clearly contrasting, and made a mental note.
 
The approach to the Matterhorn was a three-hour hike from a gondola out of Zermatt, Switzerland, with a 4000-foot elevation gain. We began late in the day as tourists trickled back from a viewing platform.
​
Trees, and most life forms stopped at an abrupt line leaving the landscape, quickly dominated by the peak and its entourage. A few hikers, seeing the climbing gear on our backpacks, offered warnings: “The mountain is closed, you should turn back... You can catch the gondola.”
 
That conjured up the movie scene from Vacation, when John Candy, security guard at Wally World, delivered bad news to the Griswald family: "Sorry folks, park's closed!”

​We had accounted for this, and were prepared we assured them.
 
(Ironically, some guides are currently pressuring the Swiss Government to close the mountain to all climbing except winter. Each short summer there are a dozen deaths, and melting permafrost has left the faces littered with loose rock - rock that will ultimately succumb to gravity.)
 
One day-hiker stopped me and asked, “Just how old are you? Do you expect to climb?"

Startled, this gave me food-for-thought in the last hour of the approach. I pondered a quote I once heard: “How old would you be if you didn't know how old you were?"
 
l can momentarily attest to the fact that most my age are still strong. I continue to work out consistently, though, admittedly, I'm not necessarily training to get better, but rather training to get worse slower.
 
Rounding a corner in the trail, the Matterhorn slapped me into the present.
 
On a typical summer day, the mountain may see 100 climbers.   Today was not typical - Gabriel, four Swiss guides, two Chinese, and myself, would be the only climbers on this monster.
 
As it turned out, the "closure" encompassed the base camp - a structure called a refugio. The refugio was an attempt to organize the flocks of climbers that arrive each season. Like other big mountains, the geography dictates where people camp prior to an attempt. After years of setting up in the same spots, they have been loved to death. Litter, human waste, and destroyed alpine meadows were replaced by a hut complete with toilets. A brilliant solution.
 
We started at 4:00 a.m. at a blistering pace.

Author Matt Tredway on the Matterhorn in the glow of the sunrise.

The hulk of a mountain was draped with a blanket of stars. It looked impossibly steep and imposing. I felt the jitters that accompany great adventure and my mind replayed the stories l read about this mountain and the greats that climbed it.
 
Those ponderings were short lived as we encountered a rock face within the first five minutes. My attention shifted to our movement up the vertical face, a sea of rock being revealed in the tiny cone of light emitted from the headlamp. Thankfully, Gabriel had some memory of this route, having climbed it once before. 

For speed, we simul-climbed. The leader placed pieces until he ran out of gear - the cue to leapfrog leads. Climbing in the dark on such a grand peak, a stillness enveloped us. I felt my soul churning. Cold air captured my breath and formed clouds that lingered momentarily. 
 
At 13,600 feet, we were on snow and ice. That was a relief as the loose rock was covered and frozen into place. The sun rose as we retrieved our crampons and axes from our packs.

​The short break revealed 2000 feet of air below us - cooling our bootsoles as we perched on a small ledge.
 
Sweaty from exertion, we stashed coats and got a drink. The air smelled fresh, and frozen. Europe's highest peaks began to appear, freshly illuminated, and disrupting the horizon.
 
We continued forward. The only noise was the steady thunks of our axes and showers of ice shards cascading down the route. Our pace increased despite the additional elevation.  
 
Finally, we leveled out at the summit, a razor-edged ridge that drops away near vertically to Italy on the southern side and to Switzerland down the north face. A three-foot statue of Saint Bernard, the patron of mountain guides, stands overlooking Switzerland, in remembrance of Ed Whymper and his first summit in 1865.  On that expedition, 4 of the 7 climbers died on descent.

​In that tunnel-vision all seemed good - a straightforward climb sprinkled with route-finding problems here and there. We climbed the rock face to a class-four goat path, more vertical rock pitches, a traverse, some boulder problems, and another vertical face. Repeat. 

Climbing up the Matterhorn's icy slopes.

Author Matt Tredway on the Matterhorn summit.

The peaceful early morning summit celebration at 14,692 feet was suddenly burst by the rotors of a helicopter. It hovered, then circled us four or five times while occupants took photos. Initial disgust was replaced by a measure of bravado. Until now, there are exactly zero times l have had a cheering section on a summit. I had one now as the occupants fist pumped along with us. Minutes later we began our descent.
 
The magnitude of the mountain became obvious once it was fully illuminated with sunlight. This perfect picture suddenly had some edges that were frayed.
 
The descent became a serious, time-consuming down-climb after we left the ice. We found ourselves negotiating loose rock, cliff faces, and boulder problems. The route was nebulous and we couldn't depend on finding occasional colorful webbing anchors as markers. Chances are those markers were actually left by climbers that found themselves desperately off route, cliffed-out, and forced to resort to a rappel. 

Though it is difficult to squelch summit joy, it can be suppressed by many things. Presently the culprit was the relentless downclimb, which quickly became the crux.
 
Under normal conditions, much of this would have been avoided by rappels, but this mountain is different. Pulling the ropes after each rap would be dangerous as the ropes can stick on or dislodge rock. 
 
At particularly dicey sections near the bottom, there were occasional pieces of gym-style ropes - not a climbing gym rope, but the rope you remember from middle school.: big, unwieldy, and stressful. The pressure of falling onto the gym floor in front of your friends was replaced with the possibility of tumbling off a short cliff onto the steep slopes below. It even became a fireman style descent at times, with nervousness causing my hands to overgrip, my forearms pumped. 
 
Three-and-one-half hours later, we descended the final cliff face and walked to the refugio deck.
 
Humbled and oozing gratitude for our survival as well as a chance to climb "one of the greats," we basked in the sun and absorbed waves of satisfaction. The preparation had paid off.

Gabriel downclimbing the steep, loose rock of the Matterhorn.

In retrospect, I realize that the process of training has become a lifestyle rather than a short-term goal. On top of that, I feel that climbing, by itself, means very little. Ultimately, it's how the experience affects our lives away from the mountains that means everything.