Conquistadors of the Useless (21 page)

During the summer of 1937 the north-east face of the Eiger, as distinct from the north face proper, was the scene of various misadventures to ropes who were training on it for the Eigerwand. The Salzburg mountaineer Gollaker died of exhaustion, and his companion Primas had both feet frostbitten. But despite the number and ability of its assailants the mountain retained its mystery throughout the season, efficiently guarded by bad weather and conditions. Only Rebitsch and Vörg got far up it.

Having reconnoitred and equipped the face as far as the first ice field, they attacked on the 11th August, reaching a point slightly higher than Sedlmayer and Mehringer's last bivouac. At this point they were surprised by bad weather, and only got down again after three days of struggle. Thanks to their all-round experience and exceptional class they were the first to reach the central part of the face and return alive.

With the summer of 1938 the attempts began again, still more numerous and more obstinate than before. On the 22nd June two excellent Italian climbers, Mario Menti and Bartolo Sandri, were killed by stone fall at about the level of the Eigerwand Station. Both of them were mountaineers of the first rank, as they had shown on the south face of the Torre Trieste, the south ridge of the Aiguille Noire de Peuterey, and other grade VI climbs.

But at last human perseverance was rewarded. The Germans Andreas Heckmair and Ludwig Vörg, and the Austrians Fritz Kasparek and Heinrich Harrer, climbed the gigantic wall for the first time from 21st to 24th July 1938. Perhaps these protagonists should be introduced before we proceed to the story of their ascent. All four were climbers and mountaineers of exceptional class, with experience in the Dolomites, the western Alps and the Caucasus, and were well known even before the Eigerwand.

Heckmair was a professional guide in the Bavarian Alps. As early as 1930 he had done, among others, two of the longest and most difficult climbs in the Dolomites at that time: the Solleder route on the Civetta and the east face of the Sass Maor. These were respectively the fifth and second ascents. The following year he had laid siege to the north face of the Grandes Jorasses, but all his attempts were foiled by weather and bad conditions. While in the area he also did the second direct ascent of the north face of the Grands Charmoz.

Ludwig Vörg, who came from Munich, was also a specialist of the eastern Alps, but in addition he had taken part in two expeditions to the central Caucasus, where he had done two climbs, among others, which were quite remarkable both for length and for difficulty. In 1934 he did the first south-north traverse of Ushba at the price of four bivouacs, and in 1936 he made the first ascent of the gigantic west face of the same mountain. The following year he and Matthias Rebitsch had made the third ascent of the north face of the Gross Fiescherhom, and also, as we have seen, an attempt on the Eigerwand which got farther than any others up to that time.

It will be seen that the Bavarian rope was one of the strongest that could have been imagined, particularly for the ascent of the Eigerwand. Its members were both rock climbers of the first order, and experienced mountaineers into the bargain. Above all, with Rebitsch away, Vörg was the only man who knew the lower part of the face.

The second rope was also composed of doughty men. Fritz Kasparek, from Vienna, was one of the finest climbers ever to come out of the eastern Alps, and the list of his amazing feats in pure rock climbing is so long that it would be boring to quote it. We need only mention the first ascent of the north face of the Dachl, the third of the north face of the Cima Ovest di Lavaredo, and in particular the first winter ascent of the Comici route on the Cima Grande, which he did as a training climb for the Eiger.

The youngest member of the party was the academic Heinrich Harrer, who has since become famous also for his adventures in Tibet and for his writings. He too had done numerous difficult ascents.

The Austrians formed a remarkable team of tough and daring climbers, but in my opinion they had far less chance of success on the Eigerwand than the Bavarians because, like the first eight victims of the face, they had too little experience on ice and in higher mountaineering. As will presently be seen, they would probably not in fact have got up without the assistance of the German pair.

Having heard that Vörg was off to the Himalayas, Heckmair had come to an agreement with Rebitsch to climb together. In the end Rebitsch was chosen for the Himalayan expedition rather than Vörg, and Heckmair and the latter only met and decided to form a team quite a short time before their ascent. They began training in the Kaiserge-birge on 20th June, planning to leave for Switzerland on 10th July, but they found it difficult to stick to this decision in view of the news from Grindlewald where Kasparek and others were already installed at the foot of the face. As soon as they seemed sufficiently fit they went straight to Munich to buy equipment. Thanks to the support of the Orgenburg-Sonthofen organisation they were able to get everything they needed, and they chose equipment suitable not only for rock but particularly for ice climbing, which Vörg reckoned to be the crux of the problem. Then they set out at last for Grindelwald and pitched their camp on the grassy slopes around Alpiglen.

After waiting several days for fine weather they attacked on 20th July, but they were so heavily laden that they had to bivouac in a hollow at the foot of the Rote Fluh. Next day the outlook was doubtful, and they were getting ready to descend when they saw Kasparek and Harrer climbing towards them, followed by the Viennese Fraisl and Brankowski. This unexpected development did not, however, cause them to change their minds. The weather was definitely dubious, and anyway they deemed it unwise to have six on the face at the same time. But, in their own words:

‘As we descended the weather got finer and finer, and our faces longer and longer'.

They reached the foot of the face at 10 a.m. in a state of despair. From Alpiglen they could follow the slow progress of the four Viennese, and before long Brankowski's rope turned back after he had been injured by a stone. After telephoning to Berne for a weather forecast they decided to attack again, and spent the afternoon stuffing themselves with food. They were off by three in the morning, making ground at fantastic speed. They passed their previous bivouac at four, and by ten o'clock were across the Hinterstoisser traverse. An hour later they reached Kasparek's bivouac site in the eastern part of the second ice field, and thanks to the latter's freshly-cut steps caught him up by 11.30 a.m.

A short discussion followed in which they decided to join forces. Then they went on steadily until they reached the ultimate point attained by the earlier attempts, a sort of rocky rib which divides the main ice field into two distinct parts. Thinking of Sedlmayer and Mehringer they kept on towards the eastern end of the Gelbewand, which they rightly believed to be its weak point. This section of the climb, which they called ‘The Ramp', is a kind of slanting gangway, not very difficult at first. Subsequently it fades out in a step split by a vertical chimney which narrows to a crack. The right wall was yellow, loose and overhanging, and they considered it out of the question. The other side was vertical and smooth. Just to improve matters, a waterfall was coming down the chimney itself. As it was seven o'clock in the evening, too late to be tackling pitches of this kind, they decided to bivouac on the spot.

Twelve hours later they started up the chimney, in which the waterfall was now replaced by solid ice. They got up it at the cost of two falls and a desperate struggle only after bringing into play every resource of modern technique, including artificial climbing on ice pitons. Above the chimney the Ramp reappeared, this time in the guise of a steep slope of ice. As soon as they could they traversed off it in the direction of the Spider, along an outward-sloping ledge of extremely rotten rock. A delicate sixty-foot wall then led to another long, exposed ledge, which finally ended in the Spider itself.
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The weather, having held out so far, now began to change for the worse. Thunder could be heard, and Heckmair therefore decided to unrope temporarily from the Austrians, who were holding him up, in order to see as much of the upper part of the face as possible before the clouds got too thick. He cramponned straight up the Spider and had reached the central couloir when the storm broke in earnest. Not long afterwards an avalanche of hail swept the whole of the slope below. The Germans, who had escaped through being in a sheltered place, thought that their friends must have been carried away, but by a miracle the latter had only a moment before put in an ice piton which enabled them to hold on. The storm soon abated, and despite an injury to Kasparek's hand the two ropes were able to reunite. The whole caravan then continued on up the steep central couloir, which was heavily iced over.

At last they came to a miserable platform where there was sufficient cover to bivouac. That night was extremely trying. Half the party had now bivouacked twice already, and all of them were worn out from the enormous exertions of the climbing. Above all they were in the grip of anxiety. The snow fell all night in huge flakes, and it was a very real question whether they could hope to escape from the face alive in such conditions.

The last day was highly dramatic. Although the actual ground becomes less difficult at this point, it was in such terrible condition that Heckmair peeled off several times. His last fall in particular was very nearly fatal, as he sprained his ankle and spiked one of Vörg's hands with his crampons. The danger of avalanches increased the difficulties. Every so often they would sweep the entire gully, and the party was nearly carried away twice despite the fact that they had worked out the frequency of the falls and were protecting themselves with numerous pitons. At last the gully opened on to the summit slopes, the angle gave back, and they came to the final ridge. Thanks to the technique and bravery of four men the greatest problem in the Alps had been solved.

After our successes of 1946, Lachenal and I became aware of our possibilities. We felt morally and technically ready to repeat the exploit of the Austrians and Germans on the Eigerwand, and this now became a definite part of our programme for the following season. That November, however, all our projects were endangered owing to a trivial accident. I cut my right hand very deeply on a broken drinking-glass, slicing the tendons of my index finger clean through, and as a result of subsequent infection I nearly lost the use of the hand altogether. After a month of intensive treatment in hospital the finger was still practically useless, and my ability to grip was seriously diminished. It might have been worse: I could still continue being a guide, but it seemed most unlikely that I would ever again be able to do the hardest rock climbs since, as can be imagined, they call for great strength in the fingers. Even if some years of patient adaptation should make such climbs possible for me again eventually, they seemed out of the question for the following season. I therefore decided to make the best of it, gave up all my plans, and settled down to build myself a chalet.

After several years of somewhat chilly relations between my father and myself, due partly to the incompatibility of our characters and partly to the difference in age, we had now once again become firm friends. Despite his strict principles and obstinate ideas I had learned to recognise the man of real kindness behind the austere façade. For his part, having confidently expected me to go to the bad, he was most relieved to see me earning my living in a decent and honourable way. True, my profession was not what he would have chosen for me himself; but my brilliant success in it poured balm on his soul. My passion for climbing was as incomprehensible to him as ever, but the austerity of my way of life and the pains I had been to in order to follow it seemed to him worthy of respect and even of encouragement.

In the course of the last few years he had frequently offered to help me according to his means, but my excessive pride had always made me reject his proposals. Now, realising how important it was to have a home of my own, and being quite unable to provide one from my own resources, I decided to swallow my pride and rely on his generosity. With his aid I was able to take advantage of an unusual opportunity to acquire a site in full view of Mont Blanc at a very low price, and also a complete chalet that some rich owners were about to have demolished. By carefully numbering every plank as it was taken down so that it could be re-erected on my own land I made sure of a roomy and comfortable home. Naturally I had to do most of the work myself, but the gaps between my professional seasons were sufficiently long to make this possible, and many of my friends offered a helping hand.

I gave myself up to this labour so completely, and found it so all-absorbing, that I became quite resigned to living without ‘grand alpinisme'. A sudden access of respectability even made me feel that it was time I began to settle down. Lachenal, however, was far from any such thoughts. Aware of his capacities and bubbling over with vitality, he was dying to get at the Eiger. He was quite prepared to try leading the whole climb, and reckoned that I would be an acceptable second even with a disabled hand. He therefore began to work on me, finding a valuable ally in the shape of my wife, who was rather sad to see me giving up all my mountain ambitions and settling into the humdrum life of an ordinary guide at the age of twenty-five. She hoped that a success on the Eiger, which she never for one moment doubted, would give me back my enthusiasm. Never a day went by without either Lachenal or Marianne – if not both together – getting at me to start training so as to be ready when the moment came. They even went so far as to place a photograph of the celebrated face opposite my bed.

In spite of remedial therapy my hand was still very weak, and my forefinger very sensitive to cold, by the time May came round. Far from feeling like a conquering hero, I toiled all the harder at the construction of my chalet. The weather got better and better, until conditions were just right for the big ice climbs. If I paused for a moment from my hard and tedious labours, I could not help but see the Aiguilles and hear their siren voices calling down to me. Bit by bit I succumbed to nostalgia, and by the time Lachenal came along at the end of the month and suggested doing the third ascent of the Nant Blanc face of the Aiguille Verte I could hold out no longer. To make up for this weakness I made him promise a day's work to compensate for the one I was losing, and refused to set out until I had finished my afternoon's labouring.