The Matterhorn, Picture 3, Zermatt, Visp District, Switzerland, 2011

The Matterhorn may be my favorite mountain. To me, it looks more extreme, dramatic, and unique than any other. It's so steep that it's cartoonish, yet otherwise its proportions are, at least from this angle, almost as perfect as they could be. In fact, if it weren't for those kinks on the side, making it resemble a shark's tooth, it wouldn't be so distinctive anyway. On this trip, I wasn't prepared to summit it (The Matterhorn is 4,478 meters, or 14,690 feet high, and the steepness of some of the faces, particularly the summit, is obvious here.), so I began hiking up it, but gave myself (and my Mom) a time limit of about a half hour. This is one of the photos I took.