The Dufourspitze is the highest peak of Monte Rosa, an ice-covered mountain massif in the Alps. Dufourspitze is the highest mountain of both Switzerland and the Pennine Alps and is also the second-highest mountain of the Alps and Western Europe, after Mont Blanc. It is located between Switzerland (Canton of Valais) and Italy (Piedmont and Aosta Valley). The peak itself is located wholly in Switzerland.
Following a long series of attempts beginning in the early nineteenth century, Monte Rosa's summit, then still called Höchste Spitze (), was first reached on 1 August, the Swiss National celebration day, in 1855 from Zermatt by a party of eight climbers led by three guides: Matthäus and Johannes Zumtaugwald, Ulrich Lauener, Christopher and James Smyth, Charles Hudson, John Birkbeck and Edward Stephenson.
Naming
The peak is distinguished by the name Dufourspitze (in German, ; ; ). This replaced the former name Höchste Spitze () that was indicated on the Swiss maps before the Federal Council, on 28 January 1863, decided to rename the mountain in honor of Guillaume-Henri Dufour. Dufour was a Swiss engineer, topographer, co-founder of the Red Cross and army general who led the Sonderbund campaign. This decision followed the completion of the Dufour Map, a series of military topographical maps created under the command of Dufour.
The point just east of the Dufourspitze and only 2 metres lower, the Dunantspitze, was renamed in 2014 in honor of Henry Dunant, the main founder of the Red Cross.
Elevation
The Dufourspitze of Monte Rosa is the most elevated point of Valais and Switzerland, although it is not the most prominent of the country, that distinction belonging to the Finsteraarhorn, nor the most isolated, that distinction belonging to Piz Bernina. The Swiss national map gives an elevation of for the summit,The geoportal of the federal authorities of the Swiss Confederation (2013) which is 4,441 metres above Lake Maggiore, Switzerland's lowest point. The height difference between the summit and the plains of northern Italy, from where Monte Rosa is well visible, reaches over . Monte Rosa has a topographic prominence of , the Great St Bernard Pass being the lowest col between it and the culminating point of the Alps. A 2000 survey, involving universities and the offices of cartography of Italy and Switzerland and part of the TOWER project (Top of the World Elevations Remeasurement), was made in order to record a more precise elevation for Monte Rosa. The result was from the Italian side and from the Swiss side, with a margin of error of 0.1 m. Monte Rosa succeeded the Finsteraarhorn as the highest summit of Switzerland in 1815, when Valais joined the Swiss Confederation.
+ Height measurements by year 1796 (Saussure's Travels in the Alps) 1862 (Dufour Map) 1941 (Siegfried Map) 1977 (National Map) 2000 (TOWER) 2009 (N. M.) 4,736 m (2430 T) 4,638 m 4,634.0 m 4,633.9 m 4,634.97 m 4,634.0 m
Though the Mediterranean can hardly be visible from the summit of Monte Rosa because of intervening mountains, the view to the south extends to the Apennines, the mountains of Corsica and the Maritime Alps. On the north side the view extends to the Jura and further to the Vosges, the Swiss Plateau being mostly hidden by the high range of the Bernese Alps.Thomas Hinchliff, after reaching the summit of Monte Rosa in 1856, described the panorama (Hinchliff, Summer months among the Alps: with the ascent of Monte Rosa, pp. 127–132): "Not a cloud defaced the gigantic panorama before us: the fair land of Italy commenced at our feet, and stretched far and far away till the view was only bounded by the obscurity of distance. Sitting at the very edge of the vast precipices which descend about 12,000 feet right down to the head of the Val d' Anzasca, we were at the end and extremity, as well as the summit, of the wild kingdom of rocks and snow; and a new world of verdure and cultivation was suddenly spread out before our eyes. The green plains of Lombardy and Sardinia, faintly tinged with blue by distance, and studded with innumerable towns and villages, some of which only looked like white specks of various sizes, fatigued the eye in the endeavour to comprehend their magnitude: all that we could do was to seize upon the most salient points of the picture, and fix them for ever on our minds."
"Comparatively in the foreground were the lakes of Maggiore, Lugano, and Como; for though the head of the latter is eighty miles in a direct line from Monte Rosa, it was not even dimmed by the haziness of distance: all around these beautiful lakes was fresh and verdant; and, as we looked at the somewhat long and narrow pond which we knew to be Lago Maggiore, it was indeed difficult to believe that the journey down its lovely surface was in reality about as long as that from London to Brighton. Lower down, and seemingly but a short distance from the foot of the lakes, was a city in which we thought we could perceive a shining white mound that we felt to be what Tennyson calls "a mount of marble, a hundred spires" — the far-famed cathedral of Milan. Turning slowly to the right, the eye passed over an immense extent of seemingly plain country, and took in almost at a glance the whole continental possessions of the king of Sardinia, with the vast chain of Alps stretching from Mont Blanc to the Mediterranean. This chain presented a very beautiful serrated outline, in which the higher tops of Mont Cenis and Monte Viso were conspicuous, and terminated abruptly at the southern extremity on the edge of the sea. I could not distinctly assert that we really saw the Mediterranean, for the distance is so enormous that it becomes impossible to distinguish the horizontal line which separates the sky from the water: but judging from the perfect clearness with which we saw the very end of the Maritime Alps, and from the fact that the Apennines were not high enough to appear noticeable in the view, it is undoubtedly certain that our true horizon must have included part of the Gulf of Genoa, though the similarity of tint at so immense a distance made it impossible to say which was sky and which was water. Still turning farther to the right, a change came o'er the fashion of our dream: farewell to the fertile green and purple tinted plains of Italy! The Titans of the mountain world once more confront our sight; and here, close in front, separated from us by a vast gulf of snow crevassed into every fantastic variety of form, rises the nearest of them, the Lyskamm. Even while we were looking at it, there came the roar of a few hundreds of tons of ice thundering down its precipitious side, as if a great frozen giant had tumbled out of bed, and was waking the mountain echoes with his groaning."
"A little beyond this came the Breithorn, now so much below us that we could look down upon its splendid white head, high over which Mont Blanc and all its dependencies were seen with perfect clearness, though the distance of sixty miles had so reduced the apparent size of this large group, that it was only just long enough to cover the summit of the nearer mountain. The Matterhorn had lost that unique grandeur of isolation which gives it so wonderful an appearance when seen from below, and was now backed up by countless peaks and glaciers of the almost untrodden land, only made known by Studer and Professor Forbes, which extends from the neighbourhood of Zermatt to that of St. Bernard and the Combin, beyond which again some of the highest summits of France were visible. The Gorner glacier with all its ramifications was laid out like a map beneath our feet as far as the Cervin pass and the foot of the Matterhorn; and scores of the smaller glaciers shone with nearly all the colours of the rainbow in their various beds, according as their position and inclination affected the dazzling light that fell upon them."
"The rocks beneath whose shelter we were entrenched prevented us from seeing the view towards the north till we rose to our feet again; and then in an instant nearly the whole of Switzerland was added to the vast panorama! Near us, and only separated by a ridge, was the Nord end of Monte Rosa, the only one of the points which remains unsealed: but though the last part of it would no doubt be very difficult, I should not think it is altogether unattainable. Further to the north, we had an admirable view of the two great ranges which enclose the valley of the Gorner Visp, that to the west culminating in the Weisshorn, and that to the east in the Dom or Grabenhorn, the highest point of the Mischabel. The last was, as far as we could judge, quite as high as the point we stood upon, and the slopes of rock and snow which lead to its sharp-pointed summit appeared to be inclined at so terribly steep an angle as to present a most formidable difficulty- to the climber. The Weisshorn forms a magnificent star amid the constellation of mountains around Zermatt, and is about 15,000 feet high: seen from Monte Rosa its peak is remarkably like that of the Dom."
"Far beyond these, and seen through a wide gap between the Dom and the Mittaghorn, shone the Jungfrau, queen of the Oberland, tinged with the same delicate yellowish shade that I had already observed on Mont Blanc: the Finsteraarhorn and many a well-known summit looked at us from afar like old friends; and yet further to the east, group after group of distant mountains, some of which must have been looking down upon the tranquil waters of Lucerne, were followed by the Tyrolese ranges, many of them far beyond the Ortler Spitze, where, at a distance of 200 miles, they displayed their snowy heads all tinged with a rosy light, though we had only arrived at the middle of the day. Thus we observed a regular gradation of colour on the snows, varying in proportion to their distance. Such was the sublime view which we had the rare fortune to enjoy."
History
Early exploration Monte Rosa could be seen from many places on the south side of the Alps and it had been mentioned in many travel diaries. At the end of the 15th century some outlines of the mountain may possibly have been painted by Leonardo da Vinci into the background of the Madonna of the Rocks or other pictures. Da Vinci explored the Italian side of the mountain and made some observations, though there is but scanty evidence that he had climbed even a minor summit in the neighbourhood. He was intrigued by the permanent snow lying on the mountain and the darkness of the sky above him, he wrote:Claire Eliane Engel, A History of Mountaineering in the Alps, p. 82
"The base of this mountain gives birth to the 4 rivers which flow in four different directions through the whole of Europe. And no mountain has its base at so great a height as this, which lifts itself above almost all the clouds; and snow seldom falls there, but only hail in the summer, when the clouds are highest. And this hail lies [unmelted] there, so that if it were not for the absorption of the rising and falling clouds, which does not happen more than twice in an age, an enormous mass of ice would be piled up there by the layers of hail, and in the middle of July I found it very considerable; and I saw the sky above me quite dark, and the sun as it fell on the mountain was far brighter here than in the plains below, because a smaller extent of atmosphere lay between the summit of the mountain and the sun."