The Matterhorn or Cervino, as it is called in Italian is without doubt the most familiar mountain in the European Alps. On the border between Switzerland and Italy, it stands tall over the Swiss village of Zermatt and the Italian village Breuil-Cervinia in the Val Tournanche. The mountain gets its name from the German words Matte, meaning meadow, and Horn, which means peak.

The Matterhorn has four faces and each one faces the four compass points: the north and east faces overlook, respectively, the Zmutt Valley and Gornergrat ridge in Switzerland while the south face fronts the resort town of Breuil-Cervinia in Italy and the west face looks towards the mountain of Dent d’Hérens which straddles the Swiss-Italian border. The north and south faces meet at the summit of Matterhorn to form a short east-west ridge. The faces are steep, and only small patches of snow and ice cling to them because regular avalanches send the snow down to accumulate on the glaciers at the base of each face. The Hörnli ridge of the northeast is the usual climbing route.