It was the 7th March and we were at last committed to the face; with a bit of luck the constant yo-yo between Scheidegg and the snow cave would be over. John and Dougal, out in front, had forced the Rock Band the previous day, spent the night in a small snow hole they had hollowed out under a rock overhang on the ice-field between the two bands, and were now climbing up towards the Second Band. Layton and I were hauling gear up the First Band. Ours was the support role. Layton had jumared up first, and most of the day went slowly as he hauled sack after sack up the face. I alternated between the snow hole and the foot of the slope. As in war, siege tactics on a mountain entail constant long periods of inaction, broken by spasmodic moments of frenetic activity. There is one big difference though: the moments of inaction are precious in their own way – you can gaze over the hills, feel the peace and silence of the mountains – peace that is the more real for the very presence of a lurking threat of change in the weather, or a mistake on a fixed rope.
Then it was my turn to follow Layton up the fixed rope – the second time I had ever been on jumars. The rock was sheer and the rope dropped down in a single span of 300 feet. Economising on weight, we had used 7 mm perlon, being the thickness of an ordinary clothesline and, in theory, strong enough, with a breaking strain of 2,000 lb. – in practice it inspired little confidence. Wherever the rope went over a sharp edge of rock, it flattened out under tension till it was not much thicker than a piece of tape; how much wear before it was cut through? Only time and experience could tell.
You clip the jumars on, one for your thigh harness, one for your foot. I got the lengths of the slings wrong again, and as a result turned that first ascent into a terrifying struggle. You have to first pull in all the spring in a 300 foot length of rope by putting your weight on it, then shooting down the ice slope about thirty feet, bouncing like a red ball at the end of a string, all the time imagining what is happening to the rope, high above your head, as it saws over sharp edges. But you can’t afford to think of that. Blot it out of your mind and start jumaring, pushing up the clamps alternately, your life depending on that thin thread that stretches forever in front of you. Glance over to the left; you’re level with the Eiger Window. A train has just pulled in and the tourists are gawping through the window, just a few feet away – a few feet which might as well be a thousand miles, for your life and your whole world revolve round that thread of rope. You’ve moved above the window – no longer in sight – no longer exists – nothing does, except the need to push the jumars up, alternately, with your rucksack, attached by a sling to your waist harness, dangling spinning below your feet.
A jerk – you drop three inches. It’s the rope – it’s gone – broken; death, tumbling horror, fear, and a heart that pumps at twice its normal rate. But you’re alive! The knot in the sling attached to the karabiner in your waist harness has jammed on the gate of the karabiner, and had then freed itself, letting you drop those few inches. Although this happened quite frequently, the jab of horror was always there – frightening in a way that climbing emergencies rarely are. You are so helpless, the pawn of a rope fixed in position by another man, the potential victim of a piece of rock that might be slowly sawing through your life-line as you, your own executioner, bounce and struggle your way up.
The angle began to ease. Nearly up, I reminded myself to adjust the length of the slings to my jumars for the next rope length, and then took stock. Layton was already near the top of the next rope-length, up a steep ice runnel. A cluster of rucksacks, all of them our responsibility, hung from a peg, and the evening sun was just touching a rocky spur over to the right. Clouds had come rolling in that afternoon, blotting out Kleine Scheidegg, and we were now alone in the world. John and Dougal were somewhere above – I could hear John’s yodel. No sign of the Germans, they were somewhere to the right, but exactly where, I did not know. They had favoured the rock spur, but with a bit of luck they would now be in difficulties. We had chosen the short hard road, had conquered it, and now had an easy run out to the foot of the next major barrier, the Second Band.
No time to dream. Layton had reached the top of the next rope-length and I started after him. Swing across to the right, up over a short steep wall, and the angle eases. No need for two jumars here. One’s enough – just kick into the snow and push the jumar up. Suddenly it is steeper, the rope’s at an angle and the jumar jumps off; I begin to topple over backwards, but grab the rope with one hand – a moment’s struggle, and the jumar is clipped back on again. A narrow escape, but I just keep going. A little hole in the snow – the cave where John and Dougal had spent the previous night and, presumably, where Layton and I would spend tonight. But there’s more work to do in the evening sun, more loads to ferry up to the foot of the next barrier.
Now I can see John and Dougal, small insect-like figures against the white of a snow ramp cutting across a great rocky depression in the Second Band. The Germans are to their right, hammering away up an impossible-looking rock-wall, sheer, featureless and seemingly very high. There’s a shout. One of the Germans has fallen – it happens too quickly for my straying eye to catch – one moment he is spread-eagled on the rock, and the next, he is dangling about twenty feet below. More shouting – he’s talking and sounds cheerful, so he can’t have hurt himself.
The sun fades fast, washing the rock and snow in a soft yellow glow which gives an illusion of warmth. John and Dougal, 300 feet above, are climbing into the dusk; they reach a ledge in the dark and have an uncomfortable, cramped bivouac. I return to our own little hole between the two Rock Bands, to find Layton already folded into it. It is very small, womb-like, reassuring. The petrol stove roars in the night, and we brew ourselves rose-hip tea to wash down our ration of viandes sèchées (a wafer-thin dried meat) and assorted nuts.
The raucous excitement and melodrama of Kleine Scheidegg has vanished. We are back on the big mountain wall, confronting our own special over-simplified reality. I love the rock and the snows, and these few moments of peace give me supreme comfort in my sleeping bag. I lie curled in the tight confines of the snow hole, tired but able to rest, hungry and able to eat – sheer contentment for a few moments of time.
Next morning the weather was still fine, and we jumared up to the camp site prepared by the others. We were now to experience the fable of the tortoise and the hare. Undoubtedly, we seemed able to climb more quickly than the Germans, and tended to pick the better routes. This enabled us frequently to get out in front, but because of our fewer numbers, we were never able to sustain our advance and, on several occasions, the Germans were to move through us, taking advantage of their reserves in numbers and their greater carrying power.
This is what happened that morning. John and Dougal had had an exhausting day and little sleep that night, their bivouac having been so poor. As a result, we were forced to spend the day after their successful ascent of the Second Band consolidating our position, ferrying up loads and digging out a good bivouac site.
The Germans were better rested and, having failed on their line up the rock buttress, climbed our fixed ropes in the early morning. They pushed on through, up the easier ground that lay above the Second Band leading up the side of the Second Ice-field. That night their front pair bivouacked about 500 feet above us, to the side of the Flat Iron, having pushed on without leaving any fixed ropes behind them. This meant we had no choice but to reclimb the route they had followed, leaving the fixed ropes in position. In the meantime, Layton, ever energetic, had raced back down to Kleine Scheidegg the previous night to pick up some more supplies, returning in the dawn to join us for our push towards the crest of the Flat Iron.
Once again, John and Dougal took the lead, while Layton and I followed, humping loads. Jorg Lehne and some of the Germans were immediately behind us, using the same fixed ropes. It was strange: even though we were still undoubtedly in competition, with each party prepared to steal a march on the other, there was also a growing friendship as we came to know, and at times to help, each other. Peter Haag and Karl Golikow, a delightful, friendly character, who always wore a broad grin and had a few cheerful words for us, or for anyone, were out in front, tackling the rocks leading up the side of the Flat Iron. Dougal and John, alternating the lead, slowly worked their way up the side of the Ice-field, and I humped my big rucksack, taking the occasional photograph and chatting to Jorg Lehne or Layton.
At last, we seemed to be nearing a summit push, though I was not at all sure, at this stage, what part I was to take in it – whether I should continue with the team once they abandoned their fixed rope, or go back down. I had surprisingly little ambition to be out in front, with my mind attuned to the challenge of getting a photographic record and not to the climbing itself. As a result, I became more aware of the risks than if I had been more deeply involved in the climb.
The day slipped by and as morning merged into afternoon a few herring-bones of cloud acted as forerunners to the smooth grey ceiling that was always a sure herald of snow. We had more loads than we could take in a single carry, and it meant that I had to go back down to haul the last rucksack up to the top of the Flat Iron. It was a heavy, awkward load and I was beginning to tire. By the time I reached the top of our line of fixed ropes, it had started to snow. There was less than an hour left to dusk, and we still hadn’t found a deep enough bank of old snow in which to dig a snow hole. The Germans, who had got there before us, were already ensconced, their hole dug, petrol stove roaring, and the bleakness of our own position became more evident. We had felt carefree and confident that morning, but all this had vanished in the cold grey of twilight.
‘There should be something on the top of the Flat Iron,’ John suggested.
‘I’ll have a look,’ said Dougal, always ready to tackle the hardest, most unpleasant job, especially if it meant leading out in front. He worked his way across the steep snow slope, immediately below the rocks of the upper part of the face. There was a thin layer of powder snow on top of hard ice.
His progress was painfully slow, his protection apart from the occasional ice piton, non-existent. It was nearly dark before he reached the crest of the Flat Iron, site of the infamous Death Bivouac, where Sedlmayer and Mehringer had frozen to death in 1935. He still had to find enough built-up snow to dig a snow hole and seemed to spend an eternity prodding about on the crest of the arête before finding the right kind of snow and, equally important, a place to anchor the rope.
‘Okay, you can come across,’ he shouted. ‘Be careful on the rope, the peg over here isn’t too good.’
It was impossible to pull the rope in tight, and it described a sagging arc across the rock-studded ice that lay between us and the crest of the Flat Iron. By this time, chilled to the bone, tired and apprehensive, I had lost much of my enthusiasm for the North Wall of the Eiger.
I was the last to traverse across. By this time it was pitch dark and I couldn’t see where to kick in with my crampons. I slipped and hung sagging on the rope and, in my fear, cursed and swore into the blind night. Being a traverse, it was particularly awkward, with the constant risk of a jumar jumping off the rope. By the time I reached the others, Dougal had disappeared headfirst into the snow, burrowing away like some new species of mole. There was no shortage of volunteers to do a spell of work in the snow hole; there was warmth in digging, shelter from the wind, and a comforting sense of enclosure in the bowels of the snow. Another hour slipped by, feet frozen, hunger gnawing, we dug away or awaited our turn to dig, crouching in the snow on the threshold of the hole. It was past midnight before there was room for all four of us. We piled in, crammed together between the rock-wall of the Death Bivouac and the outside snow wall, which seemed precariously thin. But there were still two sacks on the other side of the fixed rope – one of them Dougal’s, for he had led over the crest of the Flat Iron without a rucksack. The other one contained our precious brew kit and stove.
‘I guess someone’ll have to get them,’ said John.
There was a silence, each person dreading the prospect of another traverse on that sagging rope in the dark of the storm. We could hear the powder snow avalanches, soft yet menacing, swoosh down the face.
I was cold, frightened, and knew that under no circumstances did I want to leave the security and relative luxury of the snow hole.
‘I’ve only come this far as photographer, and I’ve done a hell of a lot more than that. I’m sorry, but I’m not going back over that traverse!’
Layton muttered something about his feet being bloody cold; then Dougal, without saying a word, swung himself out of the hole to make the dreaded traverse. We sat there, in the cave, silent – each held by his own special thoughts. Mine were of shame at my cowardice – guilt that I hadn’t volunteered – mingled with the relief of being still huddled in the snow, sheltered from wind and danger. As the time dragged by, John kept looking out of the entrance, shouting into the wind, but getting no reply. Then, at last, Dougal came back, fulfilled in the challenge he had accepted, in a state of peace that at that moment and for some time to come, Layton and I could not know.
John volunteered to get the other sack, and was back sooner, since Dougal had succeeded in tightening up the rope, thereby rendering the traverse much easier. At last we could have a brew, and we fumbled in snow-filled rucksacks for candle, matches and gas stove. Dougal lit the candle, tried to light the stove, but the cartridge appeared to be empty. He started unscrewing it; with a sudden whoosh, the gas, perhaps blocked in the jet, escaped. It ignited with a flash, and the whole cave seemed filled with fire. I was nearest the door, and the instincts of survival took over. Diving for the entrance, I only just stopped in time as I remembered there was a 3,000-foot drop on the other side. At the same time, John, with a great presence of mind, grabbed the blazing canister and hurled it through the entrance.
I received a dark look. At that moment my stock was very low. I have often thought back on this incident. No one enjoys memories of a situation which became too much for him, of panic in the face of an emergency when he reached that fragile borderline of giving up. Compare this with my reaction to the storm on the Brouillard – a situation which, in actual fact, was potentially more dangerous than this one on the Eiger. Then, I had been in control; on the Flat Iron I was not. It all comes back, I suspect, to one’s level of involvement and responsibility. In an emergency, I realised and felt I was just the cameraman – I did not intend to go to the top, having already opted out on grounds of risk, and therefore was all the more risk-conscious. John, on the other hand, behaved magnificently, reaching his own heroic stature to the full, and more, the depth of his involvement in the venture, his responsibility as leader. And so did Dougal, his involvement provided with a cutting edge of desire to explore the very extremities of his own potential.
Fortunately, the damage had been slight and the fireworks more spectacular than dangerous. We found a fresh cartridge, loaded it into the stove and in the early hours of the morning drank our first brew for nearly twenty hours. Then we all slumped into sleep, piled one on top of the other, like young wolves in a crowded lair. In the dawn, we could see the light glimmering through the walls of the snow cave. John poked an axe into the outer floor, and looked down through the hole it left. You could see Grindelwald – a good 8,000 feet below. We had burrowed our cave into the curling lip of a cornice, and the outer wall actually overhung the slope of the Third Ice-field!
It had dawned fine, once again. The Germans were already at work on a line of grooves that led up to a gully in the centre of the face. Because of their greater logistic back-up, they had managed to get away early and stay out in front. We were going to have to find an alternative route if we were to avoid following them for the rest of the climb. The team now seemed poised for their summit bid. There was barely room for four in the snow hole, and I wanted to get my film back to Scheidegg, to send it to the Telegraph. There was little enough temptation to stay with the team and complete the climb with them. I don’t think it was the risk involved that really deterred me, though awareness of it was ever present – perhaps more so than I have experienced on another route, before or since. It was primarily my lack of personal involvement, combined with concentration upon the photographic coverage of the climb.
I left that morning for the valley, after taking a couple of final photographs of Layton and Dougal setting out across the Third Ice-field to climb a groove leading to a ledge system at the foot of the prominent pillar in the centre of the face. The most obvious way up was by a gully on its right-hand side, but the Germans were already installed in this. Dougal, however, was doubtful about its feasibility, for it was barred near its top by a huge bulge of unstable-looking snow. They resolved to return the next day, and attempt a traverse of the base of the pillar, across steep blank-looking rock, where they hoped to find an easier gully on its other side. But their hopes were to be dashed.
That evening the clouds rolled back over the face and by morning a full-blown storm was raging. We talked over the problem, on the walky-talky, with me sitting in comfort in Peter Gillman’s room at the Scheidegg hotel. The little radio crackled with static, and the voice of John Harlin was frequently smothered, as if it had been engulfed in spindrift.
‘Layton’s coming down this morning,’ he told us. ‘There’s no point in three of us staying up here. Dougal and I’ll sit it out. We can’t afford to let the Germans reach the top of the Pillar in front of us; we’ll never get in front if they do. Two of them seem to be staying up.’
‘What’s the hole like?’
‘Not too bad. Quite a bit of spindrift gets in through the opening, but we’re beginning to get it sealed off properly.’
‘How much food do you have?’
‘Should be enough for four or five days, if we’re careful.’
‘Well, good luck, I’m just off to a chateaubriand for two, all to myself, over and out.’
John and Dougal settled down to their meal of dried meat and nuts, followed by rose-hip tea. They had no books with them, but in the ensuing days found little time for boredom. Just fighting the insidious spindrift that crept through every chink in their defences, cooking and keeping their sleeping bags dry, filled the day. Both John and Dougal had a wide-ranging philosophical bent. Perched in a tiny world of their own they had complete freedom to explore their own dreams, aspirations and interpretations of what they were trying to achieve in their lives.
Back at Kleine Scheidegg, the excitement steadily built up as more and more correspondents arrived – all avid for good sensational stories. John and Dougal, in their tiny eyrie, were secure, and deeply content – but to the lay beholder down below, they were trapped in the jaws of the Eiger. The journalists allowed their imaginations free rein, producing a series of sensational stories with headlines that read … ‘It started a race … now it’s a rescue.’
Each day at Scheidegg, we phoned Geneva Airport for a weather forecast. There was a high-pressure system in the Atlantic, which seemed to be drifting slowly towards Europe, bringing with it omens of good weather. However, it remained sitting off the coast of Ireland, and the winds continued to batter the Eiger. After four days, when John and Dougal had nearly run out of food, John contracted a chest infection. At one point we had no less than six doctors, all on skiing holidays, in consultation at the end of the walky-talky.
We discussed co-operation with the Germans, joint relief operations in order to carry food to the beleaguered climbers – even skied to the foot of the face, in appalling circumstances, but all to no avail. No one fancied the thought of trying to fight their way up those fixed ropes, in the face of continuous spindrift avalanches.
At last the weather improved, but our decision had been made for us. John and Dougal had no food left, and John was too ill to think of anything other than retreat. On the 16th March they came back down. The Germans, having managed to stick it out, were already sending up a relief force, and this meant that in a matter of days they would be able to force their way to the top of the Pillar, then up what seemed the only feasible route into the famous White Spider.
I had no ambition to go back on to the face – even less to do any lead climbing – but now there seemed no choice. John and Dougal obviously needed a rest. I agreed, therefore, to go back with Layton.
We set out on the 16th, myself apprehensive, frightened of those all-too-thin fixed ropes that had by now been in position for over a month, had had dozens of ascents and been battered by several storms. Yet, as so often happens, once committed, I lost much of my fear, began to enjoy the feeling of my own fitness and the rhythmic, steady movement as I climbed the ropes, finally taking them for granted. After all, they’d been here for some time and I’d climbed them all before.
The height that had taken four weeks to gain, now, with fixed ropes in position, took a mere eight hours. The snow hole had a well-lived in look, with a rim of frozen excreta round the door, and holes drilled in the sides by urine. In a blizzard you don’t open up the entrance to relieve yourself – especially as, living in a deep-freeze, there is no smell or risk of infection.
It was a good feeling to be back on the face in the quiet peace of the little ice cave – very different from the frenetic hurly-burly of the hotel below. The following day, the weather had brewed in once again, with more spindrift avalanches spewing down the face. No question of going out. I curled up in my sleeping bag, reading a book. Layton lying beside me, tucked in nose to tail, was clenching and unclenching his great hands. He hated inactivity, was like a steam boiler, steadily building up pressure with no outlet to allow escape.
It was just as well that the next morning dawned fine. We set out early; but not early enough to beat the Germans, who were already at work high in the groove above.
‘If you can’t get across the Pillar, we’ve had it,’ I commented to Layton. ‘You’ll have a dobbing match to get past those buggers.’
‘Don’t worry, it’ll go all right,’ he replied, quietly confident.
I climbed up the fixed rope Layton and Dougal had left in place before the storm. Jorg Lehne, looking rather like a wartime stormtrooper, was paying out the rope to Karl Golikow, who was out in front on their line.
‘Morning, Jorg. Do you think Karl will get up?’ I asked.
‘Maybe. We do not like that snow bulge. It could be dangerous. What will you do?’
‘We’re going round the side. There’s a better groove on the other side of the Pillar.’
‘Ah, but the bottom of the Pillar looks very difficult. I don’t think it is possible.’
‘To Layton, anything is possible,’ I replied with less confidence than I tried to put into my voice.
Layton came up and joined me at this point – gone was the cumbersome, rather diffident backwoodsman from the States, gone the nervously tensed companion of the previous day. He was now sure-moving and confident. He went straight into the lead, kicked up a few feet of snow to the foot of the rocks, hammered in a peg, clipped in a karabiner and étrier and stepped up. A short pause; gloved hands, searching, had found another placement for a peg, nudged one into the crack, tapped it with half a dozen sure blows and repeated the previous process. He knew exactly what he was doing and where to find the right placement for his pitons by glancing at the rock rather than by trying a dozen different places. He then knew how hard to hammer the piton into the crack – not too hard, yet sufficiently to hold his weight. He was a craftsman, superbly adapted to this highly specialised form of climbing.
He reached the line of weakness that stretched round the base of the Pillar. From below, it had looked easy-angled, but now I could see that this was a relative term. It was still desperately steep, and loose into the bargain. Clusters of icicles clung to every crevice in the rock, and Layton had to clear each one away before finding placement for his pegs. I don’t think any of our own team, or that of the Germans, could have completed that traverse without drilling a succession of holes for bolts, but Layton, making maximum use of his long reach, and uncanny ability to place pitons, got across it, using the cracks and crannies which nature had provided in the rock.
This type of climbing is a slow process, and the morning slipped by as he moved and swung deliberately from étrier to étrier. I talked in a desultory fashion to Jorg Lehne, gazing down at Scheidegg, now 6,000 feet below us, and watching the cavorting black specks of the skiers as they gambolled in their world of bright sunshine.
A cry came down from above. Layton had managed to get round the side of the Pillar, had pulled the rope in, and now it was my turn to follow up his pitch using jumars, and removing the pitons. Following Layton, this could be desperately difficult, because they were placed so very far apart. I found him perched on a narrow ledge which he had cut out of the ice. Above, an ice runnel ran between steep rock-walls to an even steeper ice-field. It looked hard. I belayed myself and Layton set out once again. At this stage, I had no intention of doing any leading – I had come along in an emergency, was getting some extra pictures, and was happy to hold Layton’s rope.
But Layton was no longer moving with confidence. He, a master on rock, had little experience of snow and ice. He messed around, trying to put in an ice screw – you treat it like a corkscrew, and screw it in to its head in the ice, turning it by hand, or using the pick of your hammer for leverage. Sometimes they don’t bite easily – there’s a knack to it – one that Layton hadn’t yet learned. But at last he got it in, climbed another few feet, cutting steps in the wrong places and getting tangled with his crampons.
‘Can’t get a bloody peg in,’ he muttered.
I was getting worried. You can’t afford to fall off on ice; the ice screw runners are of very doubtful value, and would almost certainly pull out. If he had a long fall, I might also be pulled from my stance, since his belay pegs seemed none to sound.
‘Do you want me to have a go?’ I offered. ‘At your present rate, I don’t think you’ll get up before dark.’
‘Okay, this just isn’t my scene.’
And so I found myself out in front, for the first time on the climb – something that I had never intended to do. I couldn’t help but get a thrill of excitement, mingled with apprehension. It looked a long, hard ice pitch, harder than anything I had ever attempted before.
Layton slid back down on the rope, and I set off, kicking carefully up to his top peg, and then pausing to take stock. He had reached the top of the little ice runnel and the ice now flared out, and up towards a band of rock about seventy feet above. It was around 70 degrees in angle, which was sufficiently steep to make it essential to cut hand-holds as well as foot-holds. The occasional island of rock stuck out of the ice, a sure sign that this was only a thin skin over the rock underneath.
You’ve got to be methodical on ice, working out the sequence of holds that you plan to create, cutting them with the minimum of effort, no bigger than absolutely necessary, all the time remaining relaxed, or aching calves and hand cramps will soon make steady movement impossible.
I cut my first steps; the apprehension slipped away. For the first time on the climb I was totally involved. Swing gently, not too hard or you’ll shatter the ice and it won’t form a perfect step; make three or four steps – all in the right places; make hand-holds to go for, and then step up, gently, delicately, with precision.
I’m thirty feet above my last runner, time for another, but the skin of ice is too thin to take ice screws. I clear away some ice. The rock underneath is as smooth and polished as a boiler plate – no cracks there. Just keep climbing, you can’t afford to fall off. And the ice gets thinner, not more than an inch thick, with a gap between ice and rock, which is nice for fingers which curl reassuringly round the ice rim in the little holes I have cut. But it’s frightening in another way. What if the ice around me breaks away? I’ll be clinging to an icy toboggan – all the way to Grindelwald. The thought is only fleeting – there’s no time any longer for fears, no room for the play of an over-vivid imagination. Just ice in front and the need to fashion a stairway. And a snow gangway, where the angle seems to ease twenty feet away, becomes the focal point of my very existence.
Now I’m a hundred feet above Layton, and the rope drops gracefully down to that one pathetic little piton that he managed to hammer in, some twenty feet above him. That would mean a fall of 160 feet. But I’ve reached the snow, good hard snow – you could go straight up it on the points of your crampons. I don’t feel brave any longer, and cut little steps with my axe, kick my boots in hard, and move up the ramp, slowly, steadily, to the foot of a groove that runs up the left-hand edge of the Pillar.
Cut out a stance, find the rock belay, and I’m safe. We’ve solved the problem of the Pillar and a great bubbling wave of joy rolls over me. I look up the groove. It’ll go all right – no problems there. I can see its top. That must be the crest of the Pillar and there’s no sound up there – that means the Germans have failed to get up the groove on the other side. We might have beaten them. I yell down to Layton and bring up the rope. I daren’t let him jumar up to me, since I can’t trust my belays and am afraid that his deadweight on the rope could pull them away.
As he climbs, I gaze down, across the face, with a rich feeling of contentment. It had been the hardest, and certainly the most spectacular ice pitch I had ever climbed. The complete lack of protection made it, in effect, a solo ascent, for had I fallen, I don’t think Layton could have held me.
It was nearly dark before he reached me. We hammered in some extra pitons and very gingerly abseiled back down the ice-field to the end of the traverse. The day’s excitement was not yet over, however. Layton was the first to swing back across the horizontal rope of the traverse, and I followed. Halfway across, my jumar jammed, and I found myself in an inextricable knot. Whatever I did seemed to tie me more securely in position, so that I could move neither backwards nor forwards.
Layton was waiting on the other end of the traverse.
‘Guess it’s going to be pretty cold if you have to stay there all night,’ he commented.
I continued my struggles on the rope, hanging free from the rock at the lowest point of a V formed by the horizontal rope under tension. The only way out seemed to be to untie completely, maintain my hold on the rope, and then reorganise my jumars and karabiners.
By this time, Layton had vanished back down to the fixed rope, towards the snow hole, muttering about his feet being cold. I felt very much on my own in the gathering dusk. Make a mistake now, and you’re dead, Bonington. The thought of the fall was worse, more immediate, than death. At last I succeeded in getting the gear sorted out, and was able to pull myself across the end of the traverse. Tired and hungry, I abseiled back down towards the Flat Iron. On the way across to our snow hole, I passed the entrance to that of the Germans. Jorg Lehne was sitting in the entrance.
‘How did it go?’ I asked. He looked thoroughly discouraged.
‘It is too dangerous,’ he said. ‘We had to turn back. We could get round by the side, but it would take a very long time. I wonder though, could we use your fixed rope to get to the top of the Pillar?’
‘Seems fair enough, provided you wait for us, and follow us up,’ I replied.
We had used each other’s fixed ropes in the past, but now we had an advantage over the Germans, for we had been the first to reach the one vital bottleneck which offered the only feasible route into the upper part of the face. We had to make sure that we stayed out in front.
That night, I told John the good news. ‘Sounds good – you guys have done a fine job. Dougal and I’ll come up the day after tomorrow.’
‘How do you feel now?’
‘I’ve been checked over by the hospital in Interlaken, and they say the infection has cleared up. I feel fine.’
‘Roger, good to hear. Layton and I’ll go up again tomorrow, and have a go at reaching the Spider.’
‘Sounds good.’
‘The brew’s ready now. See you day after tomorrow. Over and out.’
Our link with Scheidegg and civilisation cut off with the flick of a switch, we settled down to a victory feast of nuts, cheese and dried meat, with Calcatonic, an effervescent vitamin drink.
Next morning we were just getting ready to go out, when Jorg Lehne appeared. ‘Chris, I would like to talk to you. We have an idea.’
‘Go ahead.’
‘We should like to see this competition end. Would it not be a good idea if today Karl climbed with Layton. Then you would have a truly shared rope, and we could go on like this with our teams climbing together. Then it could not be said that one or other team had been taken to the top by the other. Do you think it is a good idea?’
I was immediately attracted to the suggestion. True, we had everything in our favour, which of course was why Jorg Lehne was appealing to us now. He was making his suggestion from a position of weakness. I responded immediately.
‘Sounds like a good idea to me, but I’ll have to talk it over with John.’
‘Why not let Karl climb with Layton today?’ asked Jorg. ‘It would give you a good chance to get pictures.’
‘That’s a good idea. Okay. Layton climbs with Karl today, but as for joining up on the route, John’ll have to ratify that.’
Had I been weak in agreeing so easily? I’ve often wondered. The previous day I had enjoyed some of the most intensely stimulating climbing I had ever known, and had certainly had my best day, so far, on the Eigerwand. The day before us held the same promise, of good climbing which would almost certainly be safer and better protected than the lead I had already made. And yet, photography was still my main priority. I wanted to get the best photographic record that I possibly could of this climb, and when you’re actually climbing, or even belaying someone and holding the rope, photography is very difficult. Perhaps this, more than anything, influenced my decision.
Another factor was that co-operation seemed to be the perfect way of ending the competition on the face. I had come to like and respect the Germans, as I know John, Dougal and Layton had, also. If we could all end up climbing together, it would be the perfect climax to the successful conclusion of the route.
There was still the dilemma, whether or not I should stay with the climbing team and go all the way to the top with them. At this stage, it looked as if the final push for the summit would be quite straightforward. I had no pictures in from the side, from the easy West Ridge of the Eiger. More, I had a dream of going to the summit of the mountain by the West Ridge, and then abseiling down the top ice-field on a long rope, to meet the successful team. Thus, I hoped to get the most spectacular pictures of all. I decided to go down, having photographed Layton from the top of the Pillar.
Layton and Karl set off together for our previous night’s high point, and I sat and talked with Jorg Lehne. At eight, I opened up the wireless to talk to John.
‘We’ve made a rather radical decision,’ I told him with some diffidence, for I wasn’t at all sure what his reaction would be.
‘It’s only a temporary one, until you actually ratify it. Layton and Karl Golikow are climbing together, up the Pillar, today, and I suggest that we let them do this until you get up here. We should then climb in conjunction with the Germans. This seems a good compromise to me, as it is inevitable that we are going to be following the same route to the top. What do you think?’
‘Well, it’s a lot to swallow at the moment, Chris,’ said John. ‘I’ll have to think about it. Offhand it sounds good – except I think it should have happened later, after we had actually reached the top of the Pillar. How did this decision come about?’
I told him what had taken place and we left it at that. In a way, I had forced the decision on John and his fears were well grounded. There was always the risk that in the final analysis it might have seemed that we had got help from the Germans when, in fact, the very reverse had occurred. Had I climbed with Layton that day, and had we then actually dropped a rope to the Germans, it would have been obvious that it was they who had needed the help. But I was tired of all this manoeuvring – wanted to get my pictures – so had made the decision.
Layton and Karl reached the top of the Pillar just after midday and dropped a 300-foot rope straight down the groove which had defeated the Germans. I jumared up it, while Layton started up the next pitch, a great rock corner that led to a huge roof overhang.
He moved up quickly and easily. It was very steep, but the cracks were deep and sound – it was just a question of hammering away. I hung on the rope just below Karl as he belayed Layton, taking my final pictures from the face itself. Layton, a hundred feet above, was spread-eagled below the overhang, the do-ing, do-ing, do-ing of his hammer had a joyful ring to it, and I think we all felt that the climb was very nearly in the bag.
It was time for me to start my long descent and I went down without regret. My ambitions were concentrated on the photographs I was taking, not on reaching the top of the Eiger Direct. And I spun down, down, down, precise, careful, for if you aren’t, you’re dead. Clip on the karabiner, brake on to the rope, check the gates are facing the right way and are closed, lean back, slide and zoom down the rope, in a single effortless leap to the next anchor piton – clip into that with a spare karabiner, remove the brake from the rope, replace it, check it, check it again, and down again.
It took only one and a half hours to get from 300 feet below the White Spider to the bottom of the face. Picking up my skis, I pointed them downhill, and with less grace than on the ropes, plunged through the deep powder snow of the famous White Hair Run below the Eiger, down to the rack-railway track that led up to Kleine Scheidegg. I had finished with the Eiger’s face. In four days’ time the whole climb should be finished. Next morning I would realise my ambition of climbing the West Ridge to photograph Layton and the Germans as they reached the White Spider. John and Dougal would be climbing the fixed ropes to reach the Death Bivouac that night.
March 20th. The weather still perfect. Mick Burke has now replaced Don Whillans as my assistant and we are scrambling up the broken rocks and snow slopes of the West Ridge. Dougal and John are on their way to the Death Bivouac and Layton is out in front, cutting the final steps up into the White Spider. We reached the crest of the ridge in the late afternoon, hot, tired and sweating. Winter had crept away during our long siege of the face, and spring had now pounced upon us. The afternoon sun had crept round the face, and was now bathing the summit rocks of the Eiger in its soft rays. I could see climbers in the White Spider, tiny little red flies, sitting – too complacently, perhaps – in the middle of the Spider’s Web. Two of the Germans were spending the night there. John, Layton and Dougal were at the Death Bivouac, all set for the summit push.
As Mick and I scrambled back down the West Ridge, in the gloaming, it seemed as if everything was, at last, fitting into place. Another couple of days and I should be taking those summit shots as John, Dougal and Layton cut up those last hundred feet or so of ice-field, to reach the top of the Eiger.