Biner_Leseprobe

Nevertheless, Edward Whymper’s mountaineering skills and achievements
were excellent. The trail of his first ascents leads from Dauphiné
to Chamonix to Zermatt. He was beyond the shadow of a doubt one
of the driving forces on the Matterhorn. His merits notwithstanding, all
these achievements would not have been possible without the help of
the mountain guides. Whymper undertook first ascents in the Ecuadorean
Andes with Jean Antoine Carrel as his guide. He had a great interest for
the scientific aspects of alpine regions, as can be seen by his numerous
analyses of natural phenomena such as glacial movements, of rock layers
on the Matterhorn, the effects of a glacial stream, the formation of
moraines, etc.
Whymper wrote three different versions of his account of the first ascent.
The first version was put down on paper by Whymper just a few
days after the tragedy and was addressed to Edmund von Fellenberg.
It was meant to be published in the Journal de Genève, but that did not
happen. An almost identical article appeared in The Times on August
8 of 1865. The second version is part of Whymper’s book Scrambles
amongst the Alps, published in 1871. The third version was released in
August of 1895 in the Journal de Zermatt. Also, Whymper had added
an entry to the visitors’ book at the Hotel Monte Rosa a few days after
the accident. This record was later ripped out of the visitors’ book, an
outrageous act. When Whymper returned to Zermatt in 1869, he was
furious to find the entry missing and added a new one, stating that he
had written down an account of the devastating tragedy; an account that
had apparently disappeared.
As opposed to Whymper’s reports, the statements made by Peter Taugwalder
Senior and Junior were barely acknowledged. Taugwalder Senior
was interrogated by a judge after the accident, and the transcript of said
interrogation remained sealed for 55 years. No one ever found out why. In
1905, Peter Taugwalder Junior described the events leading to the incident
to Theophil Lehner, who recorded it on paper – a document that got lost.
In 1918, Peter Taugwalder Junior was interrogated once more on behalf
of Mr Montagnier. A copy of this account has been preserved in the report
of Danger & Blakeney in the Alpine Journal of May of 1957. The original
document is filed in the archive of the Alpine Club.
22 The conquest of the Zermatt Mountains