The Eiger?

[rocketparrotlet]

The White Spider showed up! I will have to read that soon. That mountain grips me, I will have to climb it someday.

 

-Mark

[RokIzGud]

I finally finished all the videos... I will NOT let my folks see this. My climbing days would be OVERRRR!

 

... And my insurance provider.

Edited December 28, 2009 by RokIzGud

[mike1]

So I started reading the White Spider again and there are some incredible parallels to Mt Hood! I don’t mean the mountain technicalities, obviously. But Heinrich Harrer does an exceptional job showing the media and public reaction to accidents on the Eiger. The public comments are sometimes just as harsh. The media does the same job of sensationalizing the tragedies while failing to produce accurate information. Having said that, there was also some exceptionally accurate and educated reporting. The rescuers were just as dedicated and sincere. The climbers... well, you can’t be much more hard core. Harrer also did an exceptional job explaining the “why”. IMO Joe has done the best at that with this video. If you have never read the White Spider, then you should!

 

A question for you Eiger fan(atic)s, or maybe more of just something to ponder:

Max Sedlmayer and Karl Mehringer made it to their resting place at the Death Bivouac in 1935 which was higher than what Kurz, Hinterstoisser, Rainer, and Angerer made it to in 1936 (though not by much). But Hinterstoisser “unlocked the heart” by using the Dulfer technique to get across the Hinterstoisser Traverse. I wonder how Max and Karl did it?

[Dane]

They climbed a more direct line under the 1st ice field to bypass the traverse. Way more dangerious in the conditions that use to be acceptable. Which is why it is avoided now. Also, hell of a long ways, much of it traversing and very exposed, when you are on the face from the end of the Hinterstoisser to Death Bivouac.

 

Also much farther than it first appears from the Window to the Hinterstoisser.

 

Some scale here with the bottom 1/4 of the face out of the picture.

 

Topo's here.

http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.php?topic_id=864904

[mike1]

Thanks Dane! I didn’t see where Harrer described their route. Maybe I missed it... So are you saying they ascended just east from where Kurz et al were rappelling, putting them on the barrier between the Rote Fluh and the cliff band west of Eigerwand Station. Or did they go up the same line Hinterstoisser was rigging to rappel (where Kurz was stuck)? In other words, up to the purple dot (your topo) labeled “Retter”, then continuing through the orange “Toni Kurz” dot and on? I’m curious, did you read this in the White Spider?

 

[LostCamKenny]

So I started reading the White Spider again and there are some incredible parallels to Mt Hood! I don’t mean the mountain technicalities, obviously. But Heinrich Harrer does an exceptional job showing the media and public reaction to accidents on the Eiger.

 

interesting point... its amazing what the media is able to sensationalize regarding the mountains.

 

[Dane]

Hi Mike,

I can't remember the source of the info. Tried looking through my reprint of the White Spider. The older version we had in '78 included way better fold out topo. Jeff Lowe was talking about some details on the face @ super topo recently and am pretty sure it was one of those discussions that reminded me when you asked. But I also remember reading that info somewhere else before we got on the face.

 

 

Here is a better look at the face. There is a natural line that goes way left of the Rote Fluh. It is closer to the Eiger Station as you have guessed. They hit the 1st ice field and then another rock wall to get on the 2nd Ice field. Many of the early attempts went that way as well as being the "direct" in later ascents. The obvious rock fall in summer conditions kept most from getting up it. Common approach for even the modern winter attempts these days.

 

Easy to mix up the window and station..."holes". Dark blue line on the topo should be close to where Max Sedlmayer and Karl Mehringer went.

 

When you look at the face it helps to remember that when you get to the base of the Difficult crack...the first hard climbing on the '38 route, you are already 2500' off the ground. Wall is 5900' high with about 10K feet of actualy climbing. Most parties, until just the last couple of decades or so climbed to the shattered pillar and bivied in the "wet cave" above it. Then got on the "difficult crack" first thing in the morning....which if the face was in good nick generally made for a pitch of very unpleasant verglassed and difficult rock, climbed bare handed in crampons BITD. Modern dry tooling has made that little corner way... way easier. But even Ueli still uses a rope on that 80' of climbing. One of the few places he does while soloing the '38 route. Getting in and out the window is another story altogether. It's is simply cheating the experience either way. But makes for an "easy" more sane way of getting off. Still from the right side of the Hinterstoisser we down climbed four pitches, rapped another two and then down climbed and traverved another 4 or 5 to get to the window.

 

The neatest thing about the Eiger is just how it stands out when you arrive by train...you see it from miles out! Big piece of rock that dominates even the magnifigant chain of north walls that surround it.

[LostCamKenny]

after watching all 8 parts i was forced to compare it to Eiger Solo, where another brit - eric jones - solos the 1938 route.

 

that film's recreation of the tragedy of toni kurz is considerably shorter and doesn't really share the emotion of what might have been going on the way that simpson's short movie does, but Eiger solo does give a lot of other history with it, including John Harlin Jr's fall durign the attempt of the eiger direct in 66. if you've never seen eiger solo i'd recommend it as a must watch...

 

i'm reading "Beckoning" right now and am just getting to the part where joe and his partner(ray) are about to make their attempt on the eiger. the book is pretty good so far even though simpson has a slight tendency to go off on tangents...

[mike1]

Thanks Dane. I have the 1960 printing and it doesn’t go into much detail on their ascent. Maybe there's more detail in later chapters, but I don't recall. It does have a very nice trifold-out photo of the face though.

Mike

[Dane]

Good picture looking up from the belay at the start of the Difficult Crack. Funny how many drop their packs mid pitch

Rhote Fluh above.

 

 

And one of the easy mixed pitches directly above the Crack just below the Hinterstoisser. Eiger window is straight down and directly right of the climber on the pictures edge about mid frame. IIRC it is just below the little split pillar with a snow shelf on top of it and the steep horizontal snow slope below.

 

[Dane]

 

A trip up the Eigernordwand, 69 years after the first ascent

 

“Youth didn’t bother its head about the sharp tongues of the wordy warfare that flared up after the first tragedy on the Eiger’s face. It only heard in the mountain’s threats a siren call, a challenge to its own courage. It even invented the pious untruth that it was its own duty to fulfill the bequest of the men who had died. Perhaps it even believed it. But the real spur was that inexplicable longing for the eternal adventure.”

 

— Heinrich Harrer, “The White

 

More here....and one of my favorite pieces on the Eiger.

 

http://www.coppworks.com/articles/FEA_Eiger_261-01d.pdf