Relief wall of Edward Whymper

A bronze profile of Edward Whymper emerges from a jagged slab of granite embedded in the wall near the Zermatt church. Whymper stares toward the horizon, his face deeply lined and weathered by years of high-altitude sun. He led the first successful ascent of the Matterhorn in eighteen sixty-five, a climb that ended in tragedy when four men fell to their deaths during the descent. The mountain claimed his companions, but this wall records his presence as the man who mapped the summit.