Dôme de Neige (r.)

Seven climbers have lost their lives in an avalanche in the French Alps today. The incident happened on the 4015-meter-high Dôme de Neige in the Écrins massif southeast of Grenoble. The French authorities said that four Germans and three Czechs died in the avalanche. Another injured female climber from Germany was rescued. It is said that three rope teams were hit by the snow masses. According to the rescuers, the 250-meter-long avalanche was likely triggered when a snow slab separated and hurtled down the slope. Last weekend it had heavily snowed in the region. “The conditions are winter-like at the moment“, a policeman said. At least 39 people have died in snowslides this year in France, according to the National Association for the Study of Snow and Avalanches.

Finished! Ueli Steck

Actually, Ueli Steck doesn’t like the nickname “Swiss Machine”. But once again he confirmed his reputation. As a precisely running Swiss watch, the 38-year-old completed his project “82 Summits”– on the double: “Speedy Ueli” scaled all 82 four-thousanders of the Alps in only 61 days, 19 days faster than previously intended. He covered the distance between the mountains using muscle power only: by bike or on foot.

With changing partners

Ueli shortened the descent from the peaks by paragliding where possible. Doing this he early had to say good-bye to his original partner for the project.

On the double

The German professional climber Michi Wohlleben had to give up after one and a half weeks due to a rough landing on his backside after paragliding from the Schreckhorn in Switzerland. Ueli climbed on, sometimes alone, sometimes with climbing partners: e.g. with his wife Nicole or fellow climbers as Andreas Steindl, David Goettler or Jonathan Griffith.

Tragically incident

The project was overshadowed by a fatality. The 32-year-old Dutchman Martijn Seuren fell from the Rochefort Ridge to death, when he accompanied Ueli in the Mont Blanc massif.

And now Nuptse East?

Ueli decided to continue his project. Yesterday he completed it by standing on top of the 4,102-meter-high summit of the Barre des Écrins in France. “I am still super psyched, I could move on”, the Swiss wrote on Facebook. “Let’s see what comes next!” Originally, Ueli intended to repeat the route of Valeri Babanov and Yuri Kosholenko on the 7804-meter-high Nuptse East (in the neighborhood of Mount Everest): in a team with the American Colin Haley, in Alpine style. However, Steck had announced this before the devastating earthquake in Nepal on 25 April. Let’s hope he sticks to his plan!

Michi Wohlleben (l.) and Ueli Steck

They are on the way. The two top climbers Ueli Steck from Switzerland and Michi Wohlleben from Germany have now scaled the first of the 82 four-thousanders of the Alps, the 4,048-meter-high Piz Bernina in Switzerland. At 10 a.m. they reached the summit, after they had spent the night at the Tschierva Hut at 2,573 meters above sea level. Within just 80 days, the 38-year-old Ueli and the 24-year-old Michi want to climb all four-thousanders of the Alps, which are located in Switzerland, Italy and France – if possible, not on the normal but on more demanding routes.

Stop chasing records

The planned route through the Alps

The two mountaineers will have to climb on their 80-day-trip a total of 100,000 meters in altitude. They want to shorten the descent by paragliding where possible. Steck and Wohlleben will bike from mountain to mountain. It would be just a journey through the summer, Ueli said. “I want to send a message that I address also to myself”, Steck told the Swiss newspaper NZZ. “The message that chasing records is dangerous. If I continue to stay in this movie ‘Always faster, higher and further’, it will end deadly sometime. I know that.”

To Nuptse in fall

In fall 2014, Steck had narrowly escaped the avalanche on the eight-thousander Shishapangma in Tibet that had killed the German Sebastian Haag and the Italian Andrea Zambaldi. In 2013, on his solo climb through the Annapurna South Face, he almost stripped the screw, Ueli admitted. “I even accepted that I probably would not come back alive. And that’s too much “, Ueli told me a few months ago. But the Swiss top climber will not completely say good-bye to the extremes. Next fall, Steck wants to repeat the route of Valeri Babanov and Yuri Kosholenko on 7804-meter-high Nuptse East (in the neighborhood of Mount Everest): in a team with the American Colin Haley, in Alpine style. In 2003, the two Russians for the first time succeeded in reaching the summit of Nuptse East via the South Pillar. They fixed ropes up to 6,400 meters – what resulted in a heated debate about their style of climbing. The route “had been desecrated by bolts and fixed ropes”, criticized US-climber Steve House, who had reached an altitude of 7,200 meters on the same route in Alpine Style in 2002. Babanov countered: “The mountain is waiting, you just need to go there and climb it!”

Long line on the glacier

The clouds were hanging low, it was cool. Not exactly the perfect weather to tempt curious or spontaneous people to climb up to over 3,000 metre to the Koednitzkees, a glacier below the summit of Grossglockner, the highest mountain of Austria. On Saturday – as reported here – the “longest rope team of the world” should be formed there. A notary certified the number of participants of the action which in case of success should find its place in the Guinness Book of Records. Despite the bad weather 193 mountain friends roped up to a length of 600 metres. “The exercise has been successful,” said Peter Ladstätter, district head of the mountain rescue in Osttirol (Eastern Tyrol) who had organized the event.

Longer rope team on Tegelberg

It remains to be seen whether that’s enough for an entry in the Guinness Book. Afterwards the organizers were still speaking of the “longest rope team in the world”, but added “on a glacier higher than 3,000 metres”. In October 2012, about 400 employees of a Swiss outdoor company had formed an one kilometre long rope team on the ridge of (the non-glaciated, 1,881 metres high) Tegelberg in Bavaria in occasion of the company’s 150-year-anniversary. A notary was probably not present then.

Always roped up!

Meeting point Stüdlhütte

Record or not, that was not primarily the goal of the action in Osttirol. First and foremost mountain rescuers, mountain guides, the alpine police and the Centre of Alpine Excellence in Osttirol wanted to point out that climbers should always rope up before entering a glacier. In this way many falls into crevasses could end without serious consequences.

Stephan Sigrist (l.) with old equipment

Hinterstoisser Traverse, Swallows Nest, Death Bivouac. When I was a boy of ten I sat on holidays in Grindelwald using my binoculars to study the Eiger North Face. I had devoured “The White Spider”, Heinrich Harrer’s well-known book. I was so fascinated that I got up at night and looked on the route for bivouac lights. On this Wednesday 75 years ago the Eiger North Face was climbed successfully for the first time. The four pioneers of 1938 are dead. The last of the German-Austrian team who died was Harrer in 2006.

I ring Stephan Siegrist up. The 40-year-old mountaineer from Switzerland has a special relationship to the Eiger North Face. He has already climbed the wall 29 times, opened two new extremely hard routes together with his compatriot Ueli Steck – and climbed on the trails of the quartet of 1938.

Stephan, 75 years ago the Germans Anderl Heckmair and Ludwig Vörg and the two Austrians Heinrich Harrer and Fritz Kasparek climbed the Eiger North Wall for the first time. What do think about their performance?

For me it’s still one of the greatest things that have ever been made in the Alps. You have to imagine that the strain was very great. They knew that many climbers before had died in the wall. And climbing it with the material of these former days was truly heroic.

The Heckmair route (1938)

Eleven years ago you climbed the North Face together with Michal Pitelka using the equipment from 1938. Did your experiences open your eyes for the quality of the pioneer’s performance?

Of course I had already great respect for these pioneers before we started our project. But after this experience with the old equipment my respect has increased still further.

What are the main differences between old and today’s material?

For the pioneers their equipment was then certainly top material. But the 30 metres long hemp ropes could only carry 400 kilos, which for us today is dangerous to life. The shoes had rubber soles with small nails. The climbers had bad crampons, classic ice axes without prongs.  In addition the old karabiners, no helmets, just hats and caps. From A to Z it is hardly conceivable for us today to climb with this equipment.

Even today, the Eiger North Face is still often referred to by many as “murder wall”. Isn’t that a bit excessive?

Yes. Fortunately, nowadays tragic accidents hardly occur in the Eiger North Face. Today you can compare it with other major walls in the western Alps.

What are the specific risks of the wall?

If we, as right now, have high temperatures of 30 degrees, we must be alert to rock fall. The wall is long, you have to be physically fit and experienced in rock and ice climbing. Most climbers need a bivouac, where they don’t sleep well. It’s physical stress, which shouldn’t be underestimated.

Have the risks shifted in recent years due to climate change?

Even earlier, there was rock fall in the Eiger North Face. What has changed is the season to climb the wall. Today more and more climbers arrive in winter or in spring, when there is a lot of snow in the wall – as it was in July 1938. In this respect, the mountaineers have adapted to the changed circumstances.

Stephan Siegrist

On mountains like Everest or Mont Blanc you find many people who actually don’t have the necessary climbing skills. Does that also apply to the Eiger North Wall?

Fortunately not, because everybody knows the technical challenges of the wall. Normally only climbers try the North Face, who know that they have these skills.

You yourself climbed the Eiger North Face 29 times, you opened new routes and climbed them free. What does attract you again and again?

For me, the wall is still spectacular, it offers difficulties. The Eiger is a beautiful mountain and easily accessible for me. That’s why I’m happy to go to this area, especially to the North Face.

The wall is almost like a big stage. Tourists have their binoculars and camera lenses directed to it. If you climb the North Face, do you feel like living in a goldfish bowl?

Once you’re in the wall, you’re really in a different world. You hardly register the tourists, much more the surroundings. You hear the cowbells, you see the cable car (to Kleine Scheidegg) driving up and down. You don’t feel that you are being watched – although in fact it’s like that.

Heckmair and Co. took about three days for their first climbing of the Eiger North Face. Since 2011 Swiss climber Daniel Arnold is holding the record with two hours and 28 minutes. Is it the end of the road?

No, a competition like that doesn’t simply stop. But it’s not like someone starts climbing the wall in the morning and tries to break the speed record. There must be a plan, you have to be very well prepared.

Apart from these speed records, what new challenges the wall still holds?

For me personally, the north face now has so many routes that there is hardly any new, unique,  logical line that you can open. Sure there will be the one or other new variant, because the Eiger North Face is just media-effective. But real great new trips are hardly conceivable.