Dufourspitze
— — the highest light in Switzerland.
Not only on a wall.
“The highest point in Switzerland, the second-highest in the Alps. The peak rises above Zermatt on the long white ridge of the Monte Rosa massif, with Italy on the southern slope and the Gornergletscher pouring north. From the village below it sits behind closer summits and shows itself only from the right angle, in the right hour, when the snow on its crown holds the last of the alpenglow.
Dufourspitze, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Dufourspitze stands at 4,634 metres on the Swiss-Italian border, in the canton of Valais south of Zermatt. It is the highest summit of the Monte Rosa massif and the highest point in Switzerland; only Mont Blanc, 175 kilometres west, rises higher in the Alps. The mountain is named for Guillaume-Henri Dufour, the nineteenth-century Swiss general who produced the first comprehensive topographic map of the country. The Gorner and Grenz glaciers drain its northern slopes; on the Italian side the wall above Macugnaga is among the great east faces in the Alps.
The summit catches alpenglow earlier than the surrounding peaks because of its height. From the Gornergrat ridge above Zermatt, sunset reaches Dufourspitze and the Liskamm minutes after the valley has gone dark; the snow turns rose, then copper, then a thin grey before the stars come up. The same effect runs in reverse at dawn, when the eastern face above Macugnaga is the first wall in this corner of the Alps to take direct sun. The window is short, sometimes only eight minutes.
The standard route climbs from the Monte Rosa Hütte at 2,883 metres, reached by cable car from Zermatt to Rotenboden and a long traverse of the Gornergletscher. The summit day covers roughly 1,750 metres of vertical with sections of glacier travel and a fixed-rope ridge near the top; most parties hire a Zermatt-based mountain guide. The first ascent was made on 1 August 1855 by a party led by Charles Hudson and the brothers Smyth, with guides from the Zumtaugwald family. Summer conditions hold from July into September.