UKC

Hello from Guam!
I am new to mountaineering and have a goal to climb the Matterhorn (up the italian side and down to hornli.
I am 37 years old, fairly athletic, thin but out of shape. I grew up near mountains and have a bit of rock climbing experience, but that was years ago! Now i would struggle to do 10 pullups. I could run a slow 10k but that is about my limit as of now.
Is this a realistic goal? How would you recommend I prepare? I have 12-13 months- My current plan is to work on strength training, cardio and core strength at first. i will do lots of hiking with a weighted pack (not much hiking in guam!). Then I am planning to do a guided Mt Rainier climb in the US early next summer.
For the actual trip I plan on doing an acclimatization climb. How long of a trip will I need to plan? Wouldnt climbing earlier in the week tire me out for the matterhorn climb?
Any tips about any part of the trip would be greatly appreciated!

In reply to guam737pilot:

You'll need to be decent at rock climbing above all of those things to be honest. It's a very long low grade rock climb with tricky route finding and you have to climb down everything you've just climbed up.

In reply to guam737pilot:

For the technical details of the Matterhorn, it is best to search for the many, many threads on this subject (just enter "Matterhorn" in the search box on the top right). The Italian arete (I have not done it, or only the very top part of it), is mostly a quite long semi-technical route, with numerous fixed ropes, can be very exposed. Do not dismiss the seriousness of descending the Hornli arete, it is never very hard but seldom easy and more or less continuously serious - you never stop semi-climbing and it is sometimes quite full on.

But the real problem is that you need to be familiar with Alpine circumstances and situation. I think you would be better doing a series of Alpine climbs rather than Rainier, at least one to get to high altitude, e.g. the Zermat Breithorn which takes you to 4165m, to get some aclimitisation. You will need it, as the Matterhorn is just short of 4500m, you will suffer greatly if you have not previously been to comparable height.

It would probably be best if you looked at an entire Alpine trip before deciding if you really want to do the Matterhorn, get the feel of some other peaks that may be less crowded and frenetic than the Matterhorn. You may find that you prefer to climb things less busy and more personal. I doubt you could do this in less than 2 weeks, probably best to allow 3 weeks if you are coming from as far away as Guam.

Clearly you will need to get partners/guides organised beforehand to get the most of this. It is probably best, if you are following the guided route, to use an English speaking guide (I assume English is your native language), there are several (almost all British), who post on here, perhaps you should contact one of them.

Thank you both for your honesty and time responding. Great advise! It would be tough to make multiple trips to Europe. What if when I planned to do Rainier I also did the grand Tetons early next summer and then late summer plan to spend extra time in Zermatt doing a couple of the listed climbs before tackling the Matterhorn? Would that help make doing the Matterhorn more realistic? How would you structure your training for the year beforehand if there is no real good rockclimbing/mountains around? I plan to do 2 or 3 trips to Hawaii and Utah where I could climb and hike. Next month I will be in Utah for a month hiking. There are some 12-13000 mountains, but no real scrambling or with the use of crampons. I will do as much rockclimbing while I am there.
Great idea to use a British guide! I will start looking around.

In reply to guam737pilot:
You might find the pull-ups useful for photographs pulling up on the cross at the top. Otherwise spend your time learning the essentials of mountaineering. When I did the Italian ridge the essential was to get ahead of the other parties at the start and we were away second. Learn to move together fast and steadily and how to descend competently. General,fitness, yes. But pull-ups and the rest is irrelevant. The most energetic part is getting up the fixed ladders and ropes. But altitude... Ahh. Do some less high routes to get fit and if you want to see how fit you are see how long it takes you to do the Mettelhorn with a big rucksack.

In reply to guam737pilot:
the tetons are lovely. I would spend time there rather than ranier which looks a lot like a plod. more and better rock climbing in the tetons.

In reply to guam737pilot:
As everyone has emphasised, the principal requirement is to be good at mountaineering. Also, you must be very generally fit - and acclimitised (the 2 are NOT the same!).

A very important aspect of Alpine mountaineering is to be able to cover serious, but not technically hard, ground rapidly and efficiently. This is certainly a requirement for the Matterhorn. There are lots of other things you need, like judgement and a cool head, if you are climbing with a guide, he (much more rarely, she), should supply most or all of the mountain knowledge. One point is that any responsible guide will expect you to do some other, preparation routes before going for the Matterhorn traverse, he might then say that you are not ready for your main objective, so be prepared to be disappointed. It might be a good idea to contact a guide for preliminary discussions, try a lifts and partners request, or contact the ABMG (Association of British Mountain Guides) directly asking if someone is prepared to do this (as I assume you are American, there may well be American guides operating in the Swiss Alps, but I don't know anything about them. Certainly German guides frequently speak very good English).

I don't know much about the Tetons, but a friend who has seen them said that they resemble quite a small range in the Alps. This may be good enough to get Alpine style experience, but would it necessarily be that much more expensive/difficult to have a preliminary trip to the European Alps, given that you are a long way from continental USA anyway? If you did this, I might suggest the Ecrins massif in Southern France or the Engandine in Eastern Switzerland. The Ecrins is likely to be substantially cheaper when you are there than the Engandine.

In reply to guam737pilot:

Not that I'm an expert but i'm giving it a crack this year. I'm pretty experianced but to give u an idea of what I think it takes, my plan is to rock climb at 3000m, stay at 3800m and do the Breithorn traverse, walk up the Dom to acclimitise further (4500m-ish), do the Zinalrothorn (4200m-ish), and only then go for the matterhorn. I never use guides and I figure if you build up to a route correctly, you are the guide! And get the Martin Moran guide book which is absolutely awesome. This approach is time expensive but not monetarily expensive. Getting the guide Martin Moran would be even better, but Martin cost a plenty.

If you're hiring a guide for the Matterforn for the traverse route you proposed, and you're going to get some basic rock climbing experience during the previous year -- then the important physical aspects for success are (a) some steep-uphill leg endurance and (b) acclimatization to altitude.

The Rainier trip should offer a good gauge of both.

A refresher on leg endurance in the 6-8 weeks before Matterhorn should be sufficient. If you live in range of outdoor seriously steep hills, doing laps on those once or twice a week should be sufficient. Running on gentle terrain won't help much. Or if you have access to a building say at least 8 floors tall, doing laps up and down the stairwell as your main training should be sufficient. You can test how that works for Rainier.

Acclimatization time varies widely among persons. For non-high altitudes like the Matterhorn, there are chemical methods to speed it up if used during the week before the Matterhorn -- but not necessary for most people willing to spend a few days in the mountains nearby immediately before clibing. Actually sleeping up at a hut 2750-3000 meters for a couple of nights would help a lot. Actually exercising at 3000 meters doesn't make much difference -- it's just an excuse to expose your lungs and blood to thinner air.

Ken

In reply to glaramara:

A sensible balanced program, with the possible exception of rock-climbing at 3000m. Not sure I would do that, probably substitute a snow-plod to significant height, e.g. around 3900m.

One thing that it is important for the OP to realise is the sheer size and imposing feel of the Alps - this is NOT hiking as he will know, this is mountaineering, even on straightforward routes. The situation can completely un-nerve some folk, even when they are quite technically competent.

In reply to kenr:

for the lion he needs to 2nd vs I suspect he is some way short of this standard. that's US 5.7, French 5, uiaa 4. With a sack, tired and frightened. rainier is not significantly bigger than the grand teton just looks it cause lots of snow near the coast.

does the op have lots of time, lots of money both or neither!

In reply to alasdair19:
Good that you raise that point. I was assuming that the guide-person would know some way of aiding or pulleying to get him through that, if his climbing ability were not up to it. But perhaps that's not a good assumption to make.

In reply to guam737pilot:

I would love to do this mountain one day, but I know I would not be ready for a while.

Question - the climb up must be quite awesome.
But the down climb would be s**t scarry, I assume ?

In reply to Simon4:

Thank you everyone for your responses. I am surprised no one has told me to stay home

Simon4- Wow, the Ecrins are beautiful. I'm wondering if I should plan a trip there this next year and the Matterhorn the following year. I would love to make two trips to Europe this next year but coming from Guam it is quite a trip for me. Keeping this dream realistic (meaning keeping the costs low enough for my wife to let me go) has me looking for ways to keep costs down. I am not willing to go cheap on a guide though, so everything else I need consider ways I can make it happen on a lower budget. I am blessed to have the ability to fly for free, but in doing so I fly on a US airline. So unfortunately I need travel back to the states on my way to Europe... long way!!! So my thought with considering the Tetons is that I could fly there one week and travel to Rainier the next. Thank you again for your thoughts

In reply to kenr:

Thanks for your input on training an acclimatization!

In reply to alasdair19:

Thanks. so In college (15 years ago) I would top rope climb every day and could do multiple 5.9 routes... I was not that good, I mostly took friends and girls up there for enjoyment and dates, but I loved doing it. I now consider myself weaker than average for upper body strength. So when they say 5.7, how many pitches of 5.7 would i be making? I think when I was younger i would do 2 or 3 before my forearms were dead tired, and that was without heavy boots and a rucksack and my smaller 150lbs body. So I am curious how much upper body strength i will need. earlier someone laughed at the idea of pull-ups. will this be a continual rock climb the whole way up?

thanks in advance!

In reply to guam737pilot:
It's very unlikely on typical alpine routes that there will sustained technical rock climbing - more just the odd step, if that. As Simon04 noted the key things are being prepared for the large scale of the alps and being confident and efficient at moving on relatively easy (4th class, I think, in the US system) ground. It's this sort of movement that is the difference between success and failure (and safety and danger) on most alpine peaks. Put another way, I have never had tired arms on an alpine route - just tired brain and legs!

In reply to Raymondo:


From memory of 2 descents of the Hörnli Ridge, it is virtually continuous climbing. Not of a high standard, but nonetheless climbing, quite exposed climbing, more or less from top to bottom. Unlike the vast majority of Alpine routes, there is hardly anywhere that you could pretty much walk.

So the secret is to never let your concentration lapse, never relax - until you are in the hut with a beer in your hand. In fact, never relax, stay always focused is a very good Alpine principal for all routes, especially where you are tired on the descent.

In reply to guam737pilot:

The Matterhorn was my first alpine peak (after an acclimatisation bivvy on the Klein Matterhorn). My total experience at that time was 1 winter route, 3 scrambles, a couple of 1 pitch routes in Glen Nevis and Agags Groove with rocks in my sack to simulate an alpine pack.. I doubt I could have done 10 pull ups or run anything like 10k at the time.

So my training from what sound similar your position, and over 6 months, was the above plus a few hill walks. I don't remember needing much core strength for the Matterhorn but it would have been of huge benefit if my hill fitness had been better.

I climbed it with a friend so we alternated leading the steep bits on the Italian ridge and moved together for most of the day. Left the tent under the Hornli around 3.30am to cross under the east face. We then waited for sunrise at the bottom of the Furggen ridge and then traversed under the south face and up to the Carrell hut where we planned to spend the night, but it was only just lunchtime so we continued on and bivvied on the summit having not met a single person all day. The decent was easy, passing the ascending climbers early in the morning and back at the tent for lunch and a beer in the hut.

If you use a guide it will be a far quicker but I imaging a far less enjoyable experience and I doubt you would feel the same achievement level.

However....I was much younger at the time than you are now.

In reply to glaramara:

Sorry to jump in but couldn't help noticing you said you're doing the Matterhorn this year. It's also on my list for August & I'm currently in the search for a climbing partner. May I ask if you already have someone to climb with?

I've got quite a bit of Alpine experience, having climbed Dufourspitze (twice), Zinalrothorn, Weisshorn, Dom & done the Lyskamm traverse among others (all unguided). Let me know if you're interested!