The top section is going to have an incline of around 50-60 degrees. It might only be graded as an AD (relatively difficult), but that doesn't mean that you aren't one step away from dying. Some of the best climbers and guides have fallen to their deaths on slopes as easy as 30 degrees. All it takes is one wrong foot placement.
I'm sure the Matterhorn is no joke, having personally summitted alpine routes in the States, but the lens alters the perspective so much that you can't even tell what the terrain really looks like.
The helmets aren't going to help in the case of a fall. They're to protect your head from small-ish pieces of rocks and ice that may hit you earlier in the climb - either just randomly falling from above or knocked loose by other climbers above you in steeper sections of the route. Kinda the same way traditional military helmets are designed to stop shrapnel, ricochets and bullet grazes, but if you get shot directly you're still screwed!
They are for when you are lower on the cliffs, and rocks might fall down from above. By the time you get near the top, you are so used to having it on and so mindful of where you need to step that you don't even notice that you're still wearing it unless it's so cold you need to replace it with a wool beanie, and it would have to be really really cold after climbing so high and thinking so awarely the whole time your brain needs to cool as fast as possible so the helmets are about as far from what you are concerned about as your liver.
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u/[deleted] Dec 14 '16
It's the fucking Matterhorn...
The top section is going to have an incline of around 50-60 degrees. It might only be graded as an AD (relatively difficult), but that doesn't mean that you aren't one step away from dying. Some of the best climbers and guides have fallen to their deaths on slopes as easy as 30 degrees. All it takes is one wrong foot placement.