Mountaineers' Cemetery

The Mountaineers' Cemetery is tucked behind the Catholic Church of St. Mauritius in the centre of Zermatt — a small walled enclosure containing the graves of climbers who have died on the surrounding peaks over 150 years. Each headstone tells a short story of an alpine ambition that ended badly.

The graves span the full history of serious alpine climbing: the early Victorian pioneers, the Golden Age alpinists of the 1860s, and more recent climbers from across Europe. Many bodies were recovered years after death from the glaciers that slowly released them. The cemetery is small enough to read every inscription in twenty minutes, and most visitors do. It's free and open at all times.

things to do sight
A story
The cemetery contains the graves of dozens of climbers who died on the peaks around Zermatt, from Victorian pioneers to modern alpinists. The inscriptions are matter-of-fact: "fell from the summit," "killed by avalanche," "found on the glacier." The most visited grave is that of Michel Croz, the French guide who died in the first ascent of the Matterhorn in 1865. Whymper, the surviving British climber, tended his grave until Whymper's own death in 1911.