The Matterhorn isn’t the tallest mountain in the Alps, but it might be the most recognisable. Its four steep faces meet in an almost perfect pyramid pointing nearly 4,500 metres into the sky on the border between Switzerland and Italy.
It got its shape from ice. During the last ice age, four separate glaciers ground away at its four sides, carving each face flatter and flatter until the whole peak was sharpened into a four-sided pyramid. Geologists call this kind of mountain a “horn.”
The first climbers reached the top in 1865, but four of the seven men in the team died falling on the way down. The Matterhorn is still one of the world’s most deadly mountains - well over 500 climbers have lost their lives on it.
