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Carlisle man celebrates 40 years since climbing Matterhorn
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Article RatingLeo Perrin frowned a little at the U.S. Army dentist who was wearing glasses.
He had to be sure 26-year-old William Jenkins was fit for the climb of a lifetime.
“The guide looked me over and poked a finger into my belly,” recalls Jenkins, now 66, of Carlisle. “He needed to trust me.”
It was standard operating procedure for guides from the Swiss Alpine Club to meet their charges the night before the final climb.
The date was Aug. 31, 1967. Come morning, Perrin and Jenkins would be roped together going up the sheer face of the Matterhorn.
Born into a family of guides, Perrin grew up in the mountains and was ready for the challenge. He was cocky, competent and self-assured.
It was his job to poke and prod Jenkins, to test the Army captain with no mountain climbing experience, because two lives could depend on Perrin's ability to judge character.
There needed to be only one mistake for both novice and professional to fall to an early grave.
Jenkins will always remember the guides barging in at 3 a.m. to wake him and his optometrist friend, Ron Hayashida.
The two soldiers were on leave from duty in Germany and decided to climb the Swiss mountain after reading an article about it in National Geographic.
They had already received training from the alpine club, which deemed them physically and mentally fit enough to be assigned a mountain guide. The discerning eye of Leo Perrin was one last check.
Jenkins was out to test the limits of his athletic ability, so in the weeks before the climb, he constantly ran for distance to condition himself for the Matterhorn.
“I knew oxygen efficiency at high altitudes was going to be critical,” says Jenkins, just back from visiting the mountain 40 years later on Sept. 1, 2007.
Then as before, Jenkins had to climb up to the Hornli Hotte, a staging area on the shoulder of the mountain about 10,700 feet above sea level.
Back in 1967, Jenkins stayed overnight in the cabin and was asleep in a bunk when Perrin and the other guide rushed into the room carrying lanterns.
Within an hour, Jenkins found himself staring up at a black wall of near vertical rock reaching 4,000 feet into the clouds.
“Then it hit me, I must be nuts,” Jenkins recalls.
Meanwhile, Perrin was complaining about their late start. To make up for lost time, and to get ahead of other climbers, he had them ascend the first leg a different way from the classic route up the spine.
Jenkins went along with it, slowly gaining the respect of Perrin as the two men spent the next four-and-a-half hours climbing to the top.
“I remember absolute exhilaration ... The constant willing of the body to continue,” Jenkins said.
A couple of times, Perrin encouraged him to look down at the view, but Jenkins preferred to gaze upon the fleecy white blanket after they had broken through the cloud cover.
Jenkins had pinned a U.S. flag to his chest as motivation. In his backpack, he carried a banner made out of an old bedsheet and black marker to unfurl atop the Matterhorn.
While his name is listed on the banner, Hayashida had to stop just short of the summit and turn back. When Jenkins finally reached the top, there was a feeling of complete euphoria ... like being on top of the world.
“It was an unbelievable view,” Jenkins recalls. “You could see a hundred miles in all directions.”
Jenkins saw three countries at once -- Switzerland and Italy in the foreground, Mont Blanc and France off in the distance.
But there was no place for Jenkins to rest. The top of the Matterhorn comes to a sharp knife-edge point only large enough for one person. The thrill of standing there for half an hour gave Jenkins enough of an energy boost for the climb down.
The trick in descent was trying to maintain balance and relax enough to prevent his muscles from cramping up. He had to lean back enough to take the weight off the legs.
The whole time, Jenkins was snapping photos with a cheap, lightweight camera hung around his neck. As the adventure continued, Perrin warmed up to the American.
“Leo was impressed by my condition,” Jenkins recalls. “I was able to keep up with him and follow his suggestions and commands. We became good friends. He invited me to visit his family in December.”
Jenkins would return to Switzerland in 1988 to visit his old friend, only to learn Perrin had died in 1979 of stomach cancer.
The climb over, Jenkins returned to the village of Zermatt at the foot of the Matterhorn. There he sent his parents a telegram reading “Veni, Vidi, Vici” -- Latin for “I came, I saw, I conquered”.
Up until then, Jenkins did not tell his parents about the climb. He did not want to worry them.
He did not tell the Army either, figuring those in command would try to stop him. Instead, his story was featured in an Army magazine.
Fast forward almost 40 years to a talk between Jenkins and his wife, Cathie. She suggested a return visit to the Matterhorn on Sept. 1, 2007, to mark the anniversary of the original 1967 climb.
“I wanted us to celebrate,” Cathie Jenkins says. “I just thought it would be a special thing for him.”
She also wanted to launch the start of her retirement from 35 years as an English teacher with the Carlisle Area School District.
The journey began with a cable car ride from Zermatt to what is called the Schwarzee, or “black lake,” about 7,500 feet from the top of the mountain. From there, the couple had to take a winding path up another 3,000 feet to Hornli Hotte.
For William, that leg of the trip was relatively easy back in 1967. Four decades later, it lived up to its description as “moderately difficult.”
It was the first time his physically fit wife had ever climbed a mountain.
“It was awful ... a lot of work,” Cathie Jenkins recalls. The path was very steep and narrow at points, with loose stone and steep drops.
The couple spent about 45 minutes at the Hornli Hotte staging area but did not go any further.
William says he had too much respect for the mountain to try and climb to its summit at age 66. He did have the opportunity to unfurl the very same banner he used to mark the original climb, though.
“There were a lot of smiles and some applause” among the people gathered there, William says.
But time was short. William and Cathie Jenkins had only a few hours to make the descent to Schwarzee before the last cable car left.
For Cathie, the climb down was a challenge. She had to lean back to reduce the pressure on her calves.
“I had to look down and see where I could go if I made a mistake,” she said.
His second climb to Hornli Hotte filled William with pride once again -- but for a different reason.
“My wife did a wonderful job on the climb,” he said. “It was wonderful to share this anniversary with her.”
A Beaver County native, William Jenkins has been a dentist in Carlisle since 1970.
