Matterhorn at night

The Matterhorn was first climbed in 1865 and there have been many events in Zermatt this year to celebrate the 150th anniversary. This first climb was completed by Edward Whymper and 6 other climbers including local guides. All reached the summit but the rope broke on the return and four of the party fell to their deaths. This first ascent of the Matterhorn was significant in making Zermatt into a major alpine tourist destination for climbers and today, skiers and general tourists as well. To celebrate the first climb of the Matterhorn, a series of solar powered lights have been placed on the mountain to indicate the route taken by Whymper and his party. These lights come on at night for a few minutes only which provided this opportunity to take a photograph from our hotel balcony on our last night in Zermatt. A red light in the gap second from the top to show where the four climbers fell to their deaths did not show on this occasion. For the technically minded photographers, the camera was hand held and the parameters were 0.8 seconds, f4.5, ISO 3200 and focal length 100mm. The original RAW image is completely black and was processed with Lightroom followed by Topaz DeNoise to produce this image of the Matterhorn at night.