Melting Alps Trigger Epic Matterhorn Rockfall

It's that time of year when newspapers habitually run stories about how the Alps are melting, but the one in yesterday's Observer was rather more dramatic than most.

British Guide and renowned climber Victor Saunders was apparently on the Matterhorn last week, with a client, when all hell broke loose and a series of huge rockfalls raked the mountain's faces.

Saunders survived by sheltering under an overhang but is quoted as saying that he'd never seen 'so much rock falling at one time'. Things got so bad that over 70 climbers had to be rescued from the mountain's slopes last Monday, one of the biggest mountain rescue operations ever.

The basic problem say scientists is that the permafrost which holds the loose rocks of the Alps together is slowly melting with implications not just for rockfall as the whole tottering towers of schist start to fall apart, but for buildings anchored to ground previously frozen solid, but now starting to crumble.

Zermatt guides are currently re-equipping the Matterhorn with fixed ropes to replace those destroyed by the rockfall, but the increase in incidents of this kind will convince more people that the Alps are actually safer for climbing in bitterly cold winter conditions.

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