Breithorn

Breathlessly up a snowy cone, the top of the ridge to my left and then - the sharp white peaks of the Bernese Oberland stood in a line beyond the hazy depths of the Rhone Valley nearly 12000 feet below. Closer at hand were the dappled greens of Zermatt's valley at our feet. The Matterhorn, unfamiliar from this angle, rose up to just above our level and back out across Italian airspace there stood 2 prominent white summits resembling icebergs floating on the lowland haze - Mont Blanc and the Gran Paradiso.

Time for lunch at 4164m. I'd ascended the Breithorn by the normal route from Klein Matterhorn

as part of a group tour run by the Zermatt Alpin Center. The climb's easy but watch the altitude! I wouldn't do this alone though because of hidden crevasses on the way up.