The Matterhorn, is perhaps the most familiar mountain in the Alps. Located on the border between Switzerland and Italy, its graceful pyramid towers over the Swiss town of Zermatt and the Italian town Breuil-Cervinia in the Val Tournanche.The mountain has four faces, facing the four compass points, with the north and south faces meeting to form a short east-west summit ridge. The faces are tremendously steep, and only small patches of snow and ice cling to them; regular avalanches send the snow down to accumulate on the glaciers at the base of each face. The Hörnli ridge of the northeast (in the center of the view from Zermatt) is the usual climbing route.