Eiger - WikiHQ

The Eiger () is a mountain of the Bernese Alps, overlooking Grindelwald and Lauterbrunnen in the Bernese Oberland of Switzerland, just north of the main watershed and border with Valais. It is the easternmost peak of a ridge crest that extends across the Mönch to the Jungfrau at , constituting one of the most emblematic sights of the Swiss Alps. While the northern side of the mountain rises more than 3,000 m (10,000 ft) above the two valleys of Grindelwald and Lauterbrunnen, the southern side faces the large glaciers of the Jungfrau-Aletsch area, the most glaciated region in the Alps. The most notable feature of the Eiger is its nearly north face of rock and ice, named Eiger-Nordwand, Eigerwand or just Nordwand, which is the biggest north face in the Alps. This substantial face towers over the resort of Kleine Scheidegg at its base, on the eponymous pass connecting the two valleys.

The first ascent of the Eiger was made by Swiss guides Christian Almer and Peter Bohren and Irishman Charles Barrington, who climbed the west flank on August 11, 1858. The north face, the "last problem" of the Alps, considered amongst the most challenging and dangerous ascents, was first climbed in 1938 by an Austrian-German expedition. The Eiger has been highly publicized for the many tragedies involving climbing expeditions. Since 1935, at least 64 climbers have died attempting the north face, earning it the German nickname Mordwand, literally "murder(ous) wall"—a pun on its correct title of Nordwand (North Wall).

Although the summit of the Eiger can be reached by experienced climbers only, a railway tunnel runs inside the mountain, and two internal stations provide easy access to viewing-windows carved into the rock face. They are both part of the Jungfrau Railway line, running from Kleine Scheidegg to the Jungfraujoch, between the Mönch and the Jungfrau, at the highest railway station in Europe. The two stations within the Eiger are Eigerwand (behind the north face) and Eismeer (behind the south face), at around 3,000 metres. The Eigerwand station has not been regularly served since 2016.

Etymology

The first mention of Eiger, appearing as "mons Egere", was found in a property sale document of 1252, but there is no clear indication of how exactly the peak gained its name. The three mountains of the ridge are commonly referred to as the Virgin (German: Jungfrau – translates to "virgin" or "maiden"), the Monk (Mönch), and the Ogre (Eiger; the standard German word for ogre is Oger).

Geographic setting and description

thumb|The northeast side of the Eiger

thumb|[[International Space Station|ISS image of the Bernese Alps showing the Wetterhorn (right), Eiger (centre), Jungfrau (left), Lake Brienz (background) and Aletsch glacier (foreground).|left]]

The Eiger is located above the Lauterbrunnen Valley to the west and Grindelwald to the north in the Bernese Oberland region of the canton of Bern. It forms a renowned mountain range of the Bernese Alps together with its two companions: the Jungfrau () about southwest of it and the Mönch () about in the middle of them. The nearest settlements are Grindelwald, Lauterbrunnen () and Wengen (). The Eiger has three faces: north (or more precisely NNW), east (or more precisely ESE), and west (or more precisely WSW). The northeastern ridge from the summit to the Ostegg (lit.: eastern corner, ), called Mittellegi, is the longest on the Eiger. The north face overlooks the gently rising Alpine meadow between Grindelwald () and Kleine Scheidegg (), a mountain railways junction and a pass, which can be reached from both sides, Grindelwald and Lauterbrunnen/Wengen – by foot or train.

thumb|centre|800px|The Eiger with the [[Mönch and the Jungfrau]]

North face

thumb|North face

The Nordwand, German for "north wall" or "north face", is the north face of the Eiger (also known as the Eigernordwand: "Eiger north wall" or Eigerwand). It is one of the three great north faces of the Alps, along with the north faces of the Matterhorn and the Grandes Jorasses (known as 'the Trilogy') and also one of the biggest sheer faces in Europe, between 1,600 m and 1,800 m (over a mile) high. In the same year, however, the north face was finally climbed on 24 July by Andreas Heckmair, Ludwig Vörg, Heinrich Harrer and Fritz Kasparek, a German–Austrian group.

A portion of the upper face is called "The White Spider", as snow-filled cracks radiating from an ice field resemble the legs of a spider. Harrer used this name for the title of his book about his successful climb, Die Weisse Spinne (translated into English as The White Spider: The Classic Account of the Ascent of the Eiger). During the first successful ascent, the four men were caught in an avalanche as they climbed the Spider, but all had enough strength to resist being swept off the face.

Since then, the north face has been climbed many times. Today, it is regarded as a formidable challenge, not only because of its technical difficulties, exceeding those of some of the 8,000 m peaks in the Himalaya and Karakoram but also because of the increased rockfall and diminishing ice-fields. Climbers are increasingly electing to challenge the Eiger in winter when the crumbling face is strengthened by ice.

Since 1935, at least sixty-four climbers have died attempting the north face, earning it the German nickname, Mordwand, or "murderous wall", a play on the face's German name Nordwand.

First ascent

In 1857, the first recorded attempt was made by Christian Almer, Christian Kaufmann, Ulrich Kaufmann guiding the Austrian alpinist Sigismund Porges. They did manage the first ascent of neighboring Mönch instead. Porges, however, successfully made the second ascent of the Eiger in July 1861 with the guides Christian Michel, Hans, and Peter Baumann.

The first ascent was made by the western flank on August 11, 1858, by Charles Barrington with guides Christian Almer and Peter Bohren. On the previous afternoon, the party walked up to the Wengernalp hotel. From there, they started the ascent of the Eiger at 3:30 a.m. Barrington describes the route much as it is followed today, staying close to the edge of the north face much of the way. They reached the summit at about noon, planted a flag, remained for 10 minutes, and descended in about four hours. Barrington describes reaching the top, saying, "The two guides kindly gave me the place of the first man up." After the descent, the party was escorted to the Kleine Scheidegg hotel, where their ascent was confirmed by observation of the flag left on the summit. The hotel owner then fired a cannon to celebrate the first ascent. According to Harrer's The White Spider, Barrington was originally planning to make the first ascent of the Matterhorn, but his finances did not allow him to travel there as he was already staying in the Eiger region.

Mittellegi ridge

thumb|upright|The ridge from the [[Mittellegi Hut]]

Although the Mittellegi ridge had already been descended by climbers (since 1885) with ropes in the difficult sections, it remained unclimbed until 1921. On the 10th of September of that year, Japanese climber Yuko Maki, along with Swiss guides Fritz Amatter, Samuel Brawand, and Fritz Steuri, made the first successful ascent of the ridge. The previous day, the party approached the ridge from the Eismeer railway station of the Jungfrau Railway and bivouacked for the night. They started the climb at about 6:00 a.m. and reached the summit of the Eiger at about 7:15 p.m., after an over 13 hours gruelling ascent. Shortly after, they descended the west flank. They finally reached Eigergletscher railway station at about 3:00 a.m. the next day.

Attempts on the north face

1935

In 1935, two young German climbers from Bavaria, Karl Mehringer and Max Sedlmeyer, arrived at Grindelwald to attempt the ascent of the north face. After waiting some time for the weather to improve, they set off, reaching the height of the Eigerwand station before stopping for their first bivouac. The following day, facing greater difficulties, they gained little height. On the third day, they made hardly any vertical gain. That night, the weather deteriorated, bringing snow and low clouds that shrouded the mountain from the observers below. Avalanches began to sweep the face. Two days later, the weather briefly cleared, and the two men were glimpsed a little higher and about to bivouac for the fifth night before clouds descended again. A few days later, the weather finally cleared, revealing a completely white north face. Sedlmeyer's body was found at the foot of the face the following year by his brothers Heinrich and Martin Meier, who were part of a group looking for the victims of the 1936 climbing disaster. Mehringer's remains were found in 1962 by Swiss climbers below the "Flat Iron" (Bügeleisen) at the lefthand end of the second ice field.

First ascent of the north face

thumb|upright=1.4|The Heckmair route ([[Grade (climbing)|ED2, V−, A0, 60°).]]

The north face was first climbed on July 24, 1938, by Anderl Heckmair, Ludwig Vörg, Heinrich Harrer and Fritz Kasparek in a German–Austrian party. The party had initially consisted of two independent teams: Harrer (who did not have a pair of crampons on the climb) and Kasparek were joined on the face by Heckmair and Vörg, who had started their ascent a day later and had been helped by the fixed rope that the lead team had left across the Hinterstoisser Traverse. The two groups, led by the experienced Heckmair, decided to join their forces and roped together as a single group of four. Heckmair later wrote: "We, the sons of the older Reich, united with our companions from the Eastern Border to march together to victory."

1991: First ascent, Metanoia Route, North Face, solo, winter, without bolts, Jeff Lowe.
1991 (24 February): First start with a paraglider from the Eiger North Face, Martin Beerli.
1992 (18 July): Three BMG/UIAGM/IFMGA clients died in a fall down the West Flank: Willie Dunnachie, Douglas Gaines, and Phillip Davies. They had ascended the mountain via the Mittellegi Ridge.
2006 (14 June): François Bon and Antoine Montant make the first speedflying descent of the Eiger.
2006 (15 July): Approximately 700,000 cubic metres (20 million cubic feet) of rock from the east side collapses. No injuries or damage were reported.
2015 (23 July): A team of British Para-Climbers reached the summit via the West Flank Route. The team included John Churcher, the world's first blind climber to summit the Eiger, who was sight-guided by the team leader, Mark McGowan. Colin Gourlay enabled the ascent of other team members, including Al Taylor, who has multiple sclerosis, and the young autistic climber Jamie Owen from North Wales. The ascent was filmed by the adventure filmmakers Euan Ryan and Willis Morris of Finalcrux Films.

Books and films

thumb|400px|Eiger on the Swiss national map 1:25'000

The 1959 book The White Spider by Heinrich Harrer describes the first successful ascent of the Eiger north face.
The Climb Up To Hell, 1962, by Jack Olson, is an account of the ill-fated 1957 attempted climb of the north face by an Italian four-person team and the dramatic rescue of the sole survivor mounted by an international all-volunteer group of rescuers.
Eiger Direct, 1966, by Dougal Haston and Peter Gillman, London: Collins, also known as Direttissima; the Eiger Assault
The 1971 novel The Ice Mirror by Charles MacHardy describes the main character's second attempted ascent of the Eiger north face.
The 1972 novel The Eiger Sanction is an action/thriller novel by Rodney William Whitaker (writing under the pseudonym Trevanian), based around the climbing of the Eiger. This was then made into the 1975 film The Eiger Sanction starring Clint Eastwood and George Kennedy. The Eiger Sanction film crew included very experienced mountaineers (e.g., Mike Hoover, Dougal Haston, and Hamish MacInnes, see Summit, 52, Spring 2010) as consultants, to ensure accuracy in the climbing footage, equipment, and techniques.
The Eiger, 1974, by Dougal Haston, London: Cassell
The 1982 book Eiger, Wall of Death by Arthur Roth is a historical account of the first ascents of the North Face.
The 1982 book Traverse of The Gods by Bob Langley is a World War II spy thriller where a group escaping from Nazi Germany is trapped and the only possible exit route is via the Nordwand.
Eiger, 1983, a documentary film by Leo Dickinson of Eric Jones' 1981 solo ascent of the North Face.
Eiger Dreams, 1990, a collection of essays by Jon Krakauer, begins with an account of Krakauer's attempt to climb the north face.
Eiger: The Vertical Arena (German edition, 1998; English edition, 2000), edited by Daniel Anker, is a comprehensive climbing history of the north face authored by 17 climbers, with numerous photographs and illustrations.
The IMAX film The Alps features John Harlin III's climb up the north face in September 2005. Harlin's father, John Harlin II, set out 40 years earlier to attempt a direct route (the direttissima) up the face, the so-called Harlin route. At 1300 m, his rope broke, and he fell to his death. Composer James Swearingen created a piece named Eiger: Journey to the Summit in his memory.
The 2007 docu/drama film The Beckoning Silence featuring mountaineer Joe Simpson, recounting—with filmed reconstructions—the ill-fated 1936 expedition up the north face of the Eiger and how Heinrich Harrer's book The White Spider inspired him to take up climbing. The film followed Simpson's eponymous 2003 book. Those playing the parts of the original climbing team were Swiss mountain guides Roger Schäli (Toni Kurz), Simon Anthamatten (Andreas Hinterstoisser), Dres Abegglen (Willy Angerer) and Cyrille Berthod (Edi Rainer). The documentary won an Emmy Award the subsequent year.
The 2008 German historical fiction film Nordwand is based on the 1936 attempt to climb the Eiger north face. The film is about the two German climbers Toni Kurz and Andreas Hinterstoisser, involved in a competition with an Austrian duo to be the first to scale the north face of Eiger.
The 2010 documentary Eiger: Wall of Death by Steve Robinson.

References

Works cited

External links

The Eiger on Summitpost
- photos
The Eiger on Hikr
The Eiger on Flickr
Live webcam view of the Eiger north face
New and Old Explorations of the Eiger, Photos & Video
Ueli Steck wins inaugural Eiger Award 2008
Are you still here? A bagman's view of climbing the Eigerwand, by Charles Sherwood.
Obituary of Anderl Heckmair, The Independent, Feb. 3, 2005
West face of Eiger