Zermatt: the back story

About Zermatt: the back story

By the ULTIMATE Ski Resorts Editorial Team

Editor-in-Chief: Jai Michael

Zermatt was a village of farmers and their wooden barns until the age of mountaineering found it. The first ascent of the Matterhorn in 1865 made its name around the world, and the village has lived with and from its mountain ever since, without ever letting the car in.

A village of barns

Before tourism, the people of Zermatt lived from their farms, and the old Valais barns and stone-roofed houses of the village centre still show how. The Matterhorn Museum – Zermatlantis, beneath the village, recreates those original houses, and guided village tours explain how Zermatt lived before visitors came.

The first visitors

Tourism began in the middle of the 19th century. Around 1850 a small tea house at Blatten, above the village, was already welcoming walkers, and it is still a mountain restaurant today, run by the Taugwalder family, whose roots, like so many in Zermatt, are in mountaineering.

Zermatt has always been car-free.

The race for the Matterhorn

On 14 July 1865 Edward Whymper’s party of seven made the first ascent of the Matterhorn by the Hörnli ridge, after Whymper heard that Jean-Antoine Carrel had set off from the Italian side. The descent ended in tragedy, and only three men returned to the village; three days later Carrel and Jean-Baptiste Bich reached the summit from Valtournenche. A little under six years after the first ascent, Lucy Walker became the first woman to stand on top.

Guides to the world

The climb made Zermatt famous, and its guides have travelled the world for generations since. The English Church was consecrated in 1870, the Mountaineers’ cemetery remembers those who stayed on the mountain, and the bronze plaques of the Walk of Climb line the Bahnhofstrasse.

A car-free resort

Zermatt has always been car-free. Visitors arrive by train, or park in Täsch and ride the 12-minute shuttle, and get around the village on foot, by e-bus, e-taxi or horse-drawn carriage. Above it, Zermatt Bergbahnen runs the highest ski area in the Alps, linked to Breuil-Cervinia in Italy and topped by the Matterhorn Glacier Paradise at 3,883 metres; the Matterhorn Alpine Crossing now carries you across the border by cable car.

Our advice: ski the Rothorn–Sunnegga pistes (11 and 7) and the Tufternkumme (15) for the best views of the Matterhorn, book lunch in the hamlets of Findeln or Zum See, and buy your pass online early, since prices move with demand.

Zermatt through the years

Dates from Zermatt Tourism and the tourist office’s listings, read October 2026.

Opening hours, prices and seasonal openings change, so please check with Zermatt: the back story before you go.