The Swiss Alps-a Fatal Attraction? by Steenie Harvey Off to the Swiss Alps? A great place to overnight in Zermatt is the Matterhornblick Hotel-there's a splendid Blick (view) of the Matterhorn from its windows. You wake to the sound of church bells as the hotel is only a step away from the village church. 
| However beautiful these peaks may seem, they can be treacherous to climb: Be sure to take an Alpine guide with you to avoid ending up in the local cemetery.
Photo courtesy of istockphotos.com |
"I chose to climb"
Whether you intend doing anything involving pickaxes and crampons or not, the village churchyard deserves a visit. It's known as "the climbers' cemetery" and reading the tomb inscriptions is a sobering experience. Over the years, dozens of luckless mountaineers have lost their lives to the Matterhorn and its neighboring peaks."Let me go climb these virgin snows
Leave the dark stain of man behind
Let me adventure and heaven knows
Grateful shall be my quiet mind." Those words are on a memorial to Jonathan Conville, an Englishman who fell from the Matterhorn's north face in December 1979. Behind it lies the grave of Hubert Janitz, a bank cashier from Klagenfurt, Austria, who died on the Monte Rosa glacier in October 1881. Further along is a memorial to a New Yorker named Donald Stephen Williams who perished on the Breithorn in July 1975. It carries only a simple message: "I chose to climb." There are usually between 90 and 120 serious accidents in the Alps around Zermatt each year. The folly of some people beggars belief. Back in 1979, a British man was determined that his 8-year-old son would be the first child to conquer the mountain. Their bodies were never recovered. How the numerous people hobbling around Zermatt on crutches got their injuries is hard to know, but the advice is not to climb the Matterhorn without a guide from the Alpine Center. A Heidi-house chalet hotel
The Matterhornblick (Kirchestrasse, Zermatt), is a Heidi-house chalet hotel with sauna, steam-bath, and solarium. Nightly room rates include breakfast, and there's a computer in the breakfast room where guests can avail of free Internet access. This summer, the rate for double rooms is between $125 and $145; for single rooms, $63 to $92. Tel. +41 (0)27 967-2017; e-mail: info@matterhornblick.ch; website: www.matterhornblick.ch | 
