-From Heckmair to the Conquest of the Eoger
When speaking of the three great north faces of the Alps—the Matterhorn, the Eiger, and the Grandes Jorasses—their fame is almost unrivaled. All three were first climbed in rapid succession during the 1930s. Countless climbers became involved in these dramatic struggles, and both glory and tragedy unfolded upon their walls. Among the central figures was Anderl Heckmair.
This book vividly recounts the intense drama of those years, and above all, the record of Heckmair’s ascent of the Eiger North Face—where he consistently led the rope team from the front—is truly overwhelming. As a German, he writes that all these great problems were ultimately solved by climbers from Munich, though this perhaps reflects a degree of patriotic bias. Nevertheless, the energy of German youth at that time appears to have been extraordinary.
He himself writes:
“Since 1928, unemployment brought about by the Great Depression struck young people particularly hard. Their thirst for action became impossible to suppress, and thus they turned toward the mountains.”
There are also accounts suggesting that Nazi Germany encouraged these climbs by promising gold medals in recognition of such achievements, though Heckmair makes no mention of this in the book. Perhaps it would be unfair to speculate excessively, for it might diminish the purity of their passion for the mountains. Yet it is possible that the atmosphere of the times also exerted some influence.
In 1931, the brothers Toni and Franz Schmid conquered the north face of the Matterhorn. They too were companions of Heckmair, though they had kept their plans secret, and Heckmair later wrote that he was astonished to hear the news while attempting the Grandes Jorasses.
Several attempts on the Grandes Jorasses were thwarted by bad weather.
Then, in 1935, Max Sedlmayer and Karl Mehringer attempted the Eiger North Face, but perished in a storm in the area of the Third Icefield. Their final bivouac site later became known as the “Death Bivouac.” After this tragedy, Heckmair’s thoughts became increasingly fixed upon the Eigerwand.
The Eiger North Face consists of three sections. The lower part rises from 2,200 meters to 2,800 meters. The second section extends up to 3,400 meters and contains the three icefields. The final section is an almost vertical wall reaching close to the summit at 3,974 meters, including the snowfield known as the Spider.
ヒンターシュトイサートラバース:Hinterstoiser Traverse
雪田:Icefield
ランペ::the Ramp
神々のトラバース:“Traverse of the Gods”
白いクモ:the Spider
From Rock Climbs of Europe by Yasuyuki Komori
The following year, despite the previous tragedy, several parties again gathered beneath the wall. Among them were the Germans Andreas Hinterstoisser and Toni Kurz, and the Austrians Edi Rainer and Willy Angerer. They began separately but eventually joined forces midway up the face. Lacking sufficient ice-climbing technique, their progress was painfully slow, and Angerer suffered a head injury from falling rock.
After two bivouacs, they began retreating. Forced to descend through areas exposed to rockfall, they endured a third soaked bivouac. They managed to descend as far as the First Icefield, but were blocked by the steep Red Wall. Because they had removed the rope used during the traverse on the ascent—later known as the Hinterstoisser Traverse—they could no longer return by that route.
Although they descended to a point close enough to hear the rescue party near the tunnel windows of the Eiger Railway, three of the climbers were struck by falling rocks and killed. Only Toni Kurz remained alive, clinging to the wall. He survived the stormy night and came within merely three meters of rescue. Yet with frozen hands—and even using his teeth—he could not force the knot in the rope through the carabiner. Struggling desperately amid snow and violent gusts, he finally died. The guides below continued shouting encouragement:
“Get the knot through! Then you’ll be saved!”
The year 1938 became the year in which the problem was finally solved. Once again, two parties approached the North Face separately: the German team of Ludwig Vörg and Heckmair, and the Austrian party of Fritz Kasparek and Heinrich Harrer.
Heckmair’s party had initially descended to the valley from the crowded wall below, where six climbers had gathered. But seeing that the leading party was progressing slowly and that the weather appeared to improve, they hurried back upward in pursuit.
Equipped with twelve-point crampons and highly skilled in ice technique, Heckmair caught up with the leading party below the Third Icefield in less than a day, aided by the steps they had already cut. He intended to overtake them, but the good-natured Vörg proposed joining into a single rope team. This allowed them to divide the loads, and the Austrian party also knew the descent route.
They traversed left across the Third Icefield and entered the Ramp, a great chimney-like couloir, where they bivouacked at an altitude of 3,400 meters.
Above them rose a vertical chimney whose exit was covered by an icy overhang. Heckmair, climbing unencumbered, attacked it directly. Hanging suspended beneath the overhang, he somehow managed to force a passage through. He later recalled this pitch as the greatest difficulty of the entire ascent.
From there, after more than ten rope lengths and over two hours of climbing, they traversed rightward along a narrow debris-covered ledge—the “Traverse of the Gods”—and reached the Spider.
There they were struck by a surface avalanche, and Kasparek injured his hand. They bivouacked again among the cracks above the Spider. A journalist at Kleine Scheidegg reported the scene:
“At half past four, a waterspout descended above our heads. Cries of terror arose from everyone. Look at the wall! A gigantic waterfall covered the entire face and plunged downward. Torrents foaming with spray flooded the couloir… Could they possibly endure this?”
Despite suffering a fall beneath an overhang in the upper couloir, Heckmair finally emerged from the last couloir at noon, conquering the North Face. An hour later, Kasparek too emerged successfully. Yet the blizzard steadily intensified, and they did not reach the summit until half past three in the afternoon.
Descending the west ridge coated in snow and ice, Harrer—who had descended the route several days earlier and knew the way—took command. Having spent much of the climb at the rear of the party, he was less exhausted physically and mentally. Heckmair, who had fallen during the climb, injured his leg, and become severely worn down, followed behind.
When they finally descended to the valley, their first ascent caused a tremendous sensation.
The team had intended next to tackle the north face of the Grandes Jorasses, a long-cherished objective. However, only days after their success on the Eiger, the young Italian climber Riccardo Cassin and his companions conquered the Jorasses North Face first. (Someday I hope to write separately about the great Cassin.)
In 1951, Heckmair himself achieved the eighth ascent of the Grandes Jorasses North Face. Even after conquering the Eiger, the Grandes Jorasses—said to surpass even the Eiger in difficulty—remained constantly in his thoughts. That ascent required four days because of severe weather. Once again, the Jorasses imposed the ultimate hardship and ordeal upon climbers.
English version prepared with AI assistance
(Originally written in Japanese)
Japanese version:
To be continued in Part 2:
The first Japanese ascent of the Eiger North Face and tragedy of Mitsumasa Takada and Tsuneaki Watanabe.
