Conquistadors of the Useless (20 page)

I was later told that the famous Zermatt guide Alexander Graven had been up to the hut to do the Bietschhorn a few days later. Seeing the times we had entered in the hut book, he exclaimed:

‘That's impossible. Those young men must be liars.'

But next day he saw our tracks down the east face as he descended the ridge, and declared:

‘Obviously, if they can do that, they can do anything.'

After the Bietschhorn we went up to Zermatt to try the Furggen ridge of the Matterhorn, together with our Genevese friends Tomy Girard and René Dittert. I had long desired to climb this elegant pyramid, the ideal of mountain form, perhaps the most beautiful and certainly the most famous peak in the Alps. How many evenings had I not spent as a small boy, dreaming over the books of Whymper and Mummery? And suddenly there it was, in the radiant October morning, as we rounded a comer, standing over the tawny pastures in all its sublime loneliness. I was slightly shocked at first: in that soft romantic landscape of autumn colours there was something brutal in the effect of its immense black horn reared against the sky. Never before had any mountain seemed so striking. I was captivated in a moment by the spell it has cast over men since mountaineering began.

I devoured the crags with my eyes, looking for the routes I had so often read about. In particular I sought the ‘Furggen Nose' whose vast overhangs, profiled against the sky, had so long withstood even the boldest climbers until Louis Carrel, the famous Valtoumanche guide, had triumphed at last. Since then it had only been repeated once, by De Rham and Tissières, the ‘climbing scientists'. I could hardly believe that tomorrow we would be suspended up there between earth and sky, such a tumult did fear and desire make in me.

In the end, however, the ascent turned out to be another parade for the mountain goats. Beautiful from a distance as a woman of classically unfading loveliness, the Matterhorn begins to lose its charm as one gets nearer, and from close up it turns out to be no more than an immense heap of schist wrinkled with innumerable gullies. Nothing remains of the stone flame that seemed to defy the laws of gravity. The dark, fractured rock constantly breaks off in dusty avalanches, and anyone who has known the sheer granite breastplates of the Aiguilles of Mont Blanc, rising hundreds of feet without a fault or weakness, will find little charm in this ruined fortress.

We reached Carrel's overhangs in under two hours without even bothering to put on the rope. At this point the mountain recovers some power and dignity, but the rock is unbelievably fissile. I have never climbed anything at once so steep and so loose, and found it quite paralysing. But Lachenal, the acrobat of the abysses, was not in the least bit worried. Uttering cries of joy he clambered upwards with scarcely a piton, raining stones behind him. With a nice strong rope above us it did not take the Swiss and myself long to follow up this two hundred and fifty feet of dangerous rather than really difficult rock.

Our autumn campaign ended with this ascent, and we went back to Chamonix full of boyish high spirits. Yet in spite of all our enthusiasm, something seemed to be missing. We had expected more from these climbs than they had been able to give us, for all their qualities. They didn't seem to be serious enough. We had never once felt (though of course we were mistaken) that anything could go wrong, or stop us reaching the summit. In a confused sort of way it seemed that we had had fine scenery and fine sport, but not ‘grand alpinisme'.

The fact was that perfect training and modern equipment had turned us into overdeveloped instruments for the job in hand. Since technique had thus blown away the scent of adventure we should have to seek it elsewhere. After the Walker, only one climb in the Alps could give us the same sort of emotions: the face of faces, the north face of the Eiger.

1. 1.
   Translator's note.
   In this context espadrilles, kletterscüher, or scarpetti, are light suede boots with moulded rubber soles, designed for rock climbing only. They are usually called ‘klets' by English climbers, ‘espas' by the French.
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1. 2.
   Translator's note.
   In fact the conditions were not good, and the party arrived on the summit in a storm. The north-east face of the Piz Badile, another Cassin climb, is today considered a good deal easier than the Walker. The second ascent of this was also done by Gaston Rébuffat, with Bernard Pierre.
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1. 3.
   Translator's note.
   There is now a third, climbed by Couzy and Desmaison, which leads to the Pointe Marguerite.
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1. 4.
   Translator's note.
   This ‘golden age' is generally taken to be the fifties and sixties of the last century, when most of the great Alpine first ascents were made.
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1. 5.
   Translator's note.
   A tension traverse (also called a Tyrolean traverse or horizontal rappel) is used to cross a blank wall between two lines of possibility. By leaning out on the tension of the rope paid out through a piton, the climber is able to pull himself across on holds which would be inadequate if he had to support his whole weight on them. Dülfer was a famous German climber who developed the technique before 1914. Gaps can also be crossed by swinging across on a rope fixed above and to one side. This is what is meant by ‘a pendulum' in climbing.
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1. 6.
   Translator's note.
   A ‘jughandle', or just a ‘jug', is a climbing term for the sort of ideal hold that the hand will go round completely. They are also called ‘Thank God' holds if they come at the end of a difficult bit.
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1. 7.
   Translator's note.
   A ‘pied d'éléphant' is a wind and waterproof bag of light material used for pulling up over the legs on bivouacs. Sometimes a waist-length quilted bag is worn underneath.
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1. 8.
   Translator's note.
   Verglas is hard, glassy ice formed by melting and freezing. It is different from névé, or ice formed by pressure.
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1. 9.
   Translator's note.
   Specialist rock gymnasts are called ‘sestogradisti' on the continent, from their system of grading difficulty from I to VI. The nearest British equivalent, used here, comes from out adjectival grading system, of which the hardest is ‘Exceptionally Severe', or ‘XS'.
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The immense north wall of the Eiger, better known as the Eigerwand, is the highest, most famous, and most deadly mountain face in the whole of the Alps. Its black and slippery crags rise five thousand feet sheer out of the fertile pastures above Grindelwald, in the heart of the Bernese Oberland. Today it has been climbed some twenty or more times, at the cost of as many lives, but in 1946 it had still only been scaled once. Repeated attempts resulted in the deaths of eight men before an Austro-German party succeeded in climbing it in 1938, after a desperate three-day struggle. Their victory was probably the greatest feat in the history of the Alps.

Even the Eigerwand has now been to some extent surpassed in the continuing development of mountaineering. It has been climbed in one day by Waschak and Forstenlechner, and quite recently an Austro-German party of four performed the almost incredible feat of doing it in winter. Only on the highest summits in the world can modern tigers find adversaries worthy of their prowess. But nevertheless this wall will always occupy so important a place in the annals of man's conquest of the mountains that it seems to me impossible to put the second ascent in its context without telling the epic story of the first.

The face is composed of a dark limestone, hardly relieved by its few bands of ice. It begins at around seven and a half thousand feet in the pastures above Alpiglen and rises with scarcely a break in its appalling savagery to the summit of the Eiger, at 13,039 feet. The lower third consists of ledges and short walls of no especial difficulty, and near the top part of this zone are the two windows of the Jungfraujoch railway which spirals up inside the mountain. The more easterly of the windows is called the Eigerwand Station: the other, called the Stollenloch, is simply a chute for rubbish from the tunnel.

The first major obstacle is a very high cliff of smooth limestone, highest at the right-hand end where it is called the Rote Fluh. Immediately to the left of its lowest part is an ice slope of medium steepness, separated from a much larger and steeper ice slope above by a vertical wall. Running down the wall between the two is a narrow, icy gulley. Above the ice fields stands an enormous vertical cliff called the Gelbewand, and above this again, where the face becomes markedly concave, is another ice slope called the Spider. This is linked to the summit by a system of steep couloirs, the most noticeable of which comes up slightly to the left of the highest point.

It will be seen that the face presents uninterrupted difficulties, and that the Rote Fluh and the Gelbewand in particular are major obstacles. Yet, although these two sections are made severe by the quality of the rock, at once so loose and so compact that it is difficult to put in pitons, the Eigerwand would never have merited its reputation on these factors alone. First among several other hazards are the objective dangers, variable from day to day. Stones of all sizes fall from the moldering summit slopes down the great central hollow of the face, bounce over the Gelbewand and sweep the ice fields and the lower crags. They are impossible to predict or avoid.

Less spectacular but also very important is the succession of cliffs and ice slopes the whole way up the face. These latter melt during the warm part of the day and gush over the rocks, turning the chimneys and gullies below into veritable waterfalls. This of itself would be no more than a minor inconvenience, but, as the wall is high and north-facing, the hours of warmth are short, and the rest of the time the water freezes into a real armour-plating of ice all over the rock. In such conditions even easy pitches can become extremely severe or even impossible, and only the finest climbers, accustomed to climbing in crampons, stand a chance of getting up them safely.

Finally, the fact that the difficulties are sustained over more than three thousand feet of rock and ice means that candidates have to load themselves down with bivouac and other equipment, thus tiring themselves out and slowing down their progress. This was another great obstacle to the original ascent. Allowing for the sake of argument that the climb was technically possible, it would still require several days, and to remain so long on such an inhuman wall involved immense risks. A rope caught by bad weather would have its work cut out to get off alive, because at the first fall of snow the avalanches sweep down across the entire face.

It will be seen that the north face of the Eiger is defended by an extraordinary accumulation of difficulties and dangers. Few will deny that its reputation for inaccessibility, which had grown over the years, was well merited. Yet these very barriers, by defending it successfully against all comers, grew into positive attractions for those who sought high adventure. From all over Europe the mountaineering elite gathered to lay siege.

A party from Munich made the first assault in 1929. In 1934 three Germans got as far as Eigerwand Station before the leader fell, and they were saved by ropes dropped to them from the window. The first serious attempt, and one of the most remarkable, was made by two daring Bavarian climbers, Karl Mehringer and Max Sedlmayer. They had done a number of the hardest climbs in the northern limestone Alps, but this was their first visit to the really big ranges. They launched their attack in perfect weather on Wednesday August the 11th, mounting quickly as far as the foot of the Rote Fluh, where they proceeded to force directly the enormous featureless wall below the first ice field. This prodigious exploit, which still earns the admiration of connoisseurs, took up a whole day of extremely difficult climbing. Although the difficulties were less after their first bivouac the two climbers must have been tired, moving so slowly that they did not reach the second ice field until Thursday afternoon. There the stone falls were so frequent that they had to stop and bivouac again. That night a violent storm broke over the mountain, followed by snow and heavy frost. By dawn the face was plastered with snow and black ice, rendering it completely out of condition, and it remained masked in cloud all day so that it was impossible to know what was happening. On Saturday the mists cleared for a moment around noon, when the two were spotted on the small spur which limits the left end of the large ice field, but soon their agonies were hidden again from the eyes of the world.

Their corpses were carried down by the winter avalanches and later found by parties searching for yet other victims. Two pitons now marked the new borders of the unknown. But the tragic ending of the story did not discourage others from trying their chances, and the early summer of 1936 found three more German ropes at Scheidegg. Weather and conditions were not at first conducive to an all-out attempt, so the six men set up camp and spent their time reconnoitring the face and getting fit on other mountains. In a sense the Eigerwand thus indirectly claimed a third victim when Teufel was killed on a training climb. Despite the almost incessant bad weather the four who remained made several reconnaissances, in the course of which they carried loads up to the foot of the Rote Fluh and in particular found an easier way up it. During one of these explorations a climber fell a hundred and twenty feet, but landed on snow and did not hurt himself.

It may be as well to introduce these four young men, who were shortly to die in one of the most terrible of all mountain dramas. The first rope consisted of two young Bavarians. Toni Kurz was a professional guide who had done a number of first ascents in the eastern Alps, and Andreas Hinterstoisser had been his constant companion. Their biggest climb had been the north face of the Cima Grande. They formed a strong party in themselves, capable of confronting the most difficult rock climbs. Unfortunately the same could not be said about their two Austrian companions, Willy Angerer and Edi Rainer from Innsbruck. There is no doubt that they were competent climbers, but not yet having done any big ascents they were hardly qualified to tackle the Eigerwand.

The weather appeared to change at last, and both parties set out at 2 a.m. on July 18th under a sky full of stars. Moving quickly, they soon reached the foot of the Rote Fluh, where Hinterstoisser led them up the new and cunning route they had discovered. This involved a very difficult overhanging crack, followed by a daring tension traverse to the left. Having reached the first snow field in good time they took five hours to climb the short wall separating it from the second, and installed their bivouac at seven o'clock in the evening. They had climbed a good half of the face that day. If the difficulties became no greater they had every chance of reaching the summit.

During the night the weather started to change, and heavy clouds began to trail across the face. No doubt because of this dubious outlook the party did not set out from the bivouac until 6.45 a.m., cutting steps slowly across the ice field towards the left. The fog grew thicker and thicker until the watchers on the Kleine Scheidegg lost sight of the climbers. Not until the following morning could the second bivouac site be seen: it was almost exactly the same as that used by Sedlmayer and Mehringer. Nobody could understand why progress had been so slow on the second day, and it was generally supposed that the party must be exhausted and would therefore retreat. At eight o clock in the morning, however, the men were observed advancing once more. After a few hours they turned back, and it could be seen that one of them had a wound on the head.
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The first bivouac site had almost been reached when further clouds obscured it from view. A clearing at about 5 p.m. revealed the party descending the wall between the two ice fields. All due precautions were being taken, and two men were looking after the injured one, so that it was not until nine o'clock at night that they reached the lower ice field.

By the following morning the weather was definitely bad, and it rained and snowed abundantly. Voices could be heard on the face from dawn onwards, and at 11 a.m. the four men were seen at the foot of the first ice field. At noon the stationmaster climbed out of the Stollenloch and heard the party in action some six hundred feet above him. Thinking that they would be descending to the observation gallery, he went off and made tea. As they still did not arrive he went out again and managed to make contact with them by shouting. They said they were all safe and sound. Two hours later he tried again, but this time there was nothing to be heard but cries of distress. He therefore telephoned the Eigergletscher Station for a rescue party, where the guides Hans Schlunegger and Christian and Adolf Rubi happened to be on the spot and were quickly sent up on a special train. That day the three guides reached a point about three hundred feet below Toni Kurz, who was half hanging from a rope, half holding himself on to the vertical face by small holds. He called down that he was the sole survivor and that as he had no more pitons he could descend no further. In this terrible position he passed his fourth night on the wall. Next morning the rescue party set out again at 4 a.m., augmented by the guide Arnold Glatthard, and reached the foot of the Rote Fluh. Kurz was tied on some hundred and twenty feet above them, and they had no trouble in speaking to him. He called out:

‘I'm the only one left. Rainer died of cold higher up, Hinterstoisser fell off last night, and Angerer's hanging on the rope strangled.'

Kurz then carried out a series of tasks at the behest of his rescuers that gave proof of his exceptional toughness and courage. His only chance was to free the rope to which he was tied, so that he could then pull up pitons and a rope to rappel on. To this end he descended as far as Angerer, who was hanging some forty feet lower down, cut him clear, then climbed back up the rope to the tiny stance he had just left. Despite his frostbitten hands he spent several hours untangling the forty feet of rope he had thus recovered, joining it to the rest until it was long enough to lower for the equipment he needed. After six hours of perseverance he was finally able to start sliding down the rope, and it seemed that the incredible was about to come true. He had almost descended to the point where it would have been possible to reach him with an ice axe when all movement ceased, his arms opened, and his head fell back. Toni Kurz was dead, after having fought for his life with almost superhuman energy.

Nobody will ever know what happened between the stationmaster's second and third tours of inspection. Probably the party tried and failed to get back across the Hinterstoisser traverse, and was attempting a direct descent when it was hit by falling stones. The climbers may have all been knocked off, but held by the pitons through which their ropes were passed.

After the dramatic endings of the early attempts it might have been believed that the Eigerwand was indeed unclimbable, yet the best climbers of the time were more or less unanimous in considering it possible. One thing, however, was certain: a successful party would need all-round technique, indomitable energy and plenty of luck.

The siege began again the following summer. Germans, Italians and Swiss contenders appeared, and it is no exaggeration to suggest that some ten ropes were seriously interested. In spite of the Federal Council's fatuous decision to make the climb illegal numerous climbers were prowling around the foot of the face, and a veritable competition began as in the case of the north face of the Grandes Jorasses not long before.

It has been said that the German, Italian and Austrian climbers were not motivated solely by sporting considerations. This will always remain a vexed subject, and there is no doubt that certain parties were subsidised. It is even probable that the eventual victors were rewarded. But everyone who actually knows the great German and Italian climbers is nowadays of the opinion that political and material considerations played no vital part in the affair, any more than they did in the ascents of the other last great problems. More than twenty years after the first ascent, when there is no longer any possibility of profit, glory or political prestige, young climbers continue to come from every country in search of pure adventure, whatever the risk. The true explanation of the swarms of candidates must be sought rather in the high level of technique already attained at that time in the eastern Alps, and in the warlike and adventurous instincts of the German race. This species of daring was very rare in those days among French mountaineers.