Dani Arnold during his stay in Cologne

Once again, he has almost sprinted up a wall. Last August, Swiss Dani Arnold climbed the Grandes Jorasses North Face solo and without rope in the new record time of 2:04 hours. In 1938, it had taken the first climbers (led by Italian Riccardo Cassin) three days to complete the route via the Walker Spur. Since 2015, the 34-year-old is also holding the speed record for climbing the North Face of the Matterhorn (1:46 hours). Dani had made his first bang in 2011 when he broke Ueli Steck’s record in the Eiger North Face by 20 minutes and reached the summit after 2:28 hours. Steck had regained the best time in 2015 (2:22 hours).

Dani Arnold is a mountain guide and lives with his wife Denise in the canton of Uri in the 4,000-person village of Bürglen, where more than 200 inhabitants (no joke, he confirmed it to me) bear the name Arnold. I met Dani in my hometown Cologne – before his appearance as the main speaker of the Cologne Alpine Day.

Dani, how do you like the name “Usain Bolt of the classical north faces in the Alps”?

I think it’s a bit exaggerated. I am certainly very fast, but there are many other very, very good climbers. I think it’s just not true that I’m the best.

Grandes Jorasses North Face

But perhaps the fastest. After all, you hold the speed record on two of the three classic north faces in the Alps. When you climb so fast, do you sometimes get into a state of intoxication, like when running, when at some point a flow sets in and everything seems to go by itself?

Yes, there is such a feeling. I then feel free and light. If you, for example, climb the Waterfall Chimney, the Fragile Band and the Fragile Crack in the Eiger North Face, it usually takes you a lot of time. But when you’re doing it solo and at speed, you just follow one spot after the other. And then you really have the feeling that it’s fast.

Last summer you climbed the Walker Spur on the Grandes Jorasses in two hours four minutes, 17 minutes faster than the previous record holder Ueli Steck. You climbed completely without rope and other security equipment. How much risk is allowed from your point of view?

It’s not possible without risk, that’s quite clear. On the other hand, it was my goal to climb the Walker Spur without any security equipment. It was just to be the mountain and me. I first had to find out: Do I dare at all? Is it still safe? Then I decided upon this route. And I never had the feeling that I was taking a huge risk. I don’t think you can say in general that less equipment means higher risk.

How did you prepare yourself? Did you know every climbing move of this route?

The route is 1,200 meters long. I have the talent to remember places and climbing moves very well. I know, for example, how the grips look like at the Rebuffat-Corner, one of the difficult spots, and which hand I have to use on which grip. You also need a “rolling planning”, as I call it,  and a lot of self-confidence.

In the wall

You once said that there was a right to risk. What did you mean by that?

If you live for something, prepare seriously for it and then enter a danger zone, society will not accept that. I don’t think that’s right. After all, you don’t just approach these things negligently, out of ignorance or stupidity. If you really prepare yourself for something and take it seriously, you can also take a little risk, because it’s one hundred percent worth it.

Dealing with your speed records means also coming across the name Ueli Steck, because it was his records that you broke. He fell to his death at the age of 40 last year on Nuptse. Was that a warning, a reminder for you?

He did exactly the same as I do now. And of course you immediately think: Hej, that can also happen to you. I believe every accident – not only Ueli’s, but also those of other climbers – remains in the brain. That doesn’t mean that you are going a completely different way now. But I’m sure that I take not as much risk now as I did five or ten years ago.

Dani shortly before leaving the wall

When climbing at the highest level, there is always the danger of overtightening the screw one day. How do you protect from this?

The danger of going a step too far at some point is obvious. This also scares me a little, because of course I always try to reach the optimum and a little bit more. In order to counteract this, I go fishing, for example, or I simply spend time with friends and family, where we don’t talk about the subject of climbing at all. That helps me to get away from it a bit. Otherwise everything would be about climbing and also about this more, more, more. I have to have other thoughts and also to leave it well enough alone.

In the general public you are known above all because of your speed ascents. And yet you are a complete climber. For example, you are one of the first winter ascenders of Cerro Egger in Patagonia and you were also on expedition with the Huber brothers in the Karakoram. Does it bother you that you are often reduced to speed climbing in public?

It bothers me a bit. On the other hand, speed climbing allows me to make a living from climbing because there are enough lectures and sponsors. That’s why it’s important. When I do a 90-minute lecture on an evening, I use the fame for speed climbing to tell my heart stories, for example about mixed climbing in Scotland, these very, very difficult climbs.

Dani Arnold (3rd from r.) in 2015 with Thomas and Alexander Huber, their Pakistani companion Rasool, Mario Walder and Seppi Dabringer (from right)

Will you go on big expeditions again in the next few years?

Definitely. In terms of difficulty and speed, things won’t go on this way forever. Then new stories on new mountains in unknown regions will come up. With the Huber brothers I really found two great guys with whom I really enjoy traveling. This is almost more important to me than being extremely strong. You have to have a good time together. And that’s what we have.

Would an eight-thousander also be interesting for you?

Certainly. Up to now I never felt the need to climb up there, but it’s developing slowly. I would like to experience what it feels like.

Do you have a dream destination, a mountain you absolutely still want to climb?

Actually not. The Eiger North Face, for example, wasn’t this one and only goal for me. I have many, many ideas. When it becomes more concrete in preparation, I focus on a mountain. And then it suddenly becomes my mountain, and there is no other one.

Dani while ice climbing in the Helmcken Falls in Canada

You have climbed the three big north faces of the Alps solo and at great speed, so a circle has closed – unless you want to regain the Eiger record. Are you going to tick off speed climbing now?

With the record in the North Face of the Grandes Jorasses, it’s a bit over. Most likely I won’t go back to the Eiger again. But I want to keep the whole topic open. I don’t really have a concrete speed project at the moment, but that can change suddenly for me. I think I haven’t quite finished that yet.

When will we see you again on a big expedition?

In winter I want to go ice climbing in Russia or China. I have never been there in high winter. I also want to meet the people living in these extremely cold regions. That fascinates me too. There are certainly cold fingers there! (laughs)

Can you climb a mountain just completely normal, without any ulterior motive on an extreme route?

Yes, there are those days when I have no ambitions and can just enjoy it. I still love this being outside. 

Jeff Lowe (1950-2018)

“The climb will go. Get rid of the rope. It’s only distracting you,” Jeff Lowe once said. He was an uncompromising climber. Lowe loved to be alone or in small teams on extreme routes. The American succeeded more than 1,000 first ascents in his climbing career. Jeff was born in 1950 in Ogden, Utah, as the fourth of eight children. When he was four years old, his father took him skiing and two years later climbing. The family was enthusiastic about mountain sports. Aged 14, Jeff climbed his first new route: on Mount Ogden, doing it solo. He was often en route with his brothers Greg and Mike and his cousin George Henry Lowe.

Legendary attempt on Latok I North Ridge

Two of Jeff Lowe’s projects in particular are legendary. In 1978, Jeff and George Henry Lowe together with their compatriots Jim Donini and Thomas R. Engelbach tried to reach the 7,145-meter-high summit of Latok I in the Karakoram in Pakistan via the extremely difficult North Ridge. 150 meters below the highest point they had to turn around in a storm. After more than three weeks in the wall, they returned exhausted, but safely from the mountain. More than 30 attempts to complete exactly this route to the summit have since failed. As reported, the Slovenians Ales Cesen and Luka Strazar and the Briton Tom Livingstone after all reached the summit of Latok I for the first time over the north side on 9 August. However, the trio had deviated from the North Ridge in the upper part of the mountain.

Spectacular route via Eiger North Face

Jeff Lowes legendary route “Metanoia”

No less spectacular was Jeff Lowe’s legendary route “Metanoia” through the north face of the Eiger. In a life crisis Jeff had come to Switzerland in the winter of 1991 and had opened the extreme Eiger route in nine days – solo and without using bolts. It was not until the end of 2016 that the German Thomas Huber and the two Swiss Stephan Siegrist and Roger Schaeli succeeded in repeating the route for the first time. “We were three, Jeff was alone then. During every pitch, that I led, I tried to imagine how it was for him climbing alone. He must have been totally stressed. But he did it!,” Thomas wondered afterwards. “I have left the route with a great deal of awe.”

Incurable illness

In recent years Jeff Lowe had been bound to a wheelchair and needed care. He suffered from a rare, still incurable illness, with similar symptoms like MS or ALS. When, in 2017, Lowe was awarded the Piolet d’Or, the “Oscar of the Mountaineers”, for his lifetime climbing achievements, he was no more able to collect the trophy personally.

R.I.P.

“I will miss him beyond measure and yet I am glad that he is free of his physical body and all the pain and suffering he has endured for many years,” Jeff’s partner Connie Self, who cared for him for the past eight years, wrote on Facebook. Jeff Lowe died at the age of 67 years.

Thomas Huber at the ISPO

Thomas Huber radiates pure joie de vivre. “I’m doing well, more than in a long time,” says the 50-year-old German top climber, as we meet at the ISPO sporting goods trade fair in Munich. On 30 December, the older of the two Huber brothers had provided another highlight of his career: Along with the Swiss climbers Stephan Siegrist and Roger Schaeli, Thomas succeeded the second ascent of the legendary route “Metanoia” in the centre of the Eiger North Face: “How can a year end better? I have just taken this flow with me,” enthuses Huber.

“Wow, it’s okay!”

Jeff Lowes legendary route “Metanoia”

2016 was an extreme year for him. First the 16-meter-fall from a rock face in the Berchtesgaden region in Bavaria, which he survived with incredible luck; then the almost miraculous turbo recovery from the scull fracture he had suffered; the journey to Pakistan to climb the North Face of the seven-thousander Latok I; the unsuccessful rescue action for the US climbers Kyle Dempster and Scott Adamson at the nearby Ogre II; then the veto of his companions against an attempt on Latok I. “These were all difficult moments, which I had to work up mentally,” Thomas admits. “I have accepted my fall, and that I had made a mistake there. I have also reflected that I simply need to be more conscious. Maybe I too – like Jeff Lowe – have become a new person through climbing Metanoia, because I can say now: Wow, it’s all right. I am strong. We had so much fun, although we were pretty close to the limit.”

Rare illness

For 25 years, the extreme route that Jeff Lowe had opened in winter 1991, climbing solo, without bolts, had been a too hard nut to crack for many climbers. The American had come to the Eiger North Face in a life crisis. “I’m not sure that he really wanted to return home,” says Roger Schaeli in the video on the second ascent.

Not for nothing, Lowe called his route “Metanoia”, which means “repentance”. Today, the climbing pioneer, who has made more than 1000 first ascents in his career, is sitting in a wheelchair. The 66-year-old suffers from a rare, still incurable illness, with similar symptoms like MS or ALS. Thomas Huber had visited Jeff Lowe before his expedition to Latok I. In 1978, Lowe had belonged to a rope team of four, who had climbed via the North Ridge of Latok I to a point not far below the 7,145-meter-high summit, when a storm had hit them back. 22 days after setting off, the quartet had returned to the base camp, completely exhausted, but safe.

Awe and gratitude

Huber, Schaeli and Siegrist (from l. to r.)

“I met Jeff and saw him confined to his wheelchair,” says Thomas. “I realized at once that I would like to repeat his route Metanoia. I wanted to roll out a red carpet to tell him: Hey, guy, what you did at that time was a doozie!” After the many failed attempts to repeat it, Lowe’s Route had become a “mystery”, says Thomas. “At some point everybody said: Metanoia, crazy, strange.” The American had spent nine days in the wall. In their second run, Huber, Siegrist and Schaeli needed two days to repeat the route. “We were three, Jeff was alone then. During every pitch, that I led, I tried to imagine how it was for him climbing alone. He must have been totally stressed. But he did it!” Thomas wonders. “I have left the route with a great deal of awe – and also gratitude: that I am still living.”

Heidi Sand (in Patagonia last November)

Impossibly Heidi Sand could have foreseen that Denali would change her life in this way. When the German mountaineer and sculptor descended from the summit of the highest mountain of North America (6,190 m) in 2010, the then 43-year-old suddenly had strong stomach pain. Soon after the shattering diagnosis: advanced colorectal cancer. After the emergency surgery, chemotherapy followed. “If I survive, I want to reward myself with an eight-thousander,” Heidi then promised herself – and fulfilled this dream of her life: On 26 May 2012 the mother of three children stood on the summit of Mount Everest.

Meanwhile Heidi Sand has passed the critical five-year mark after her cancer diagnosis. She is considered to be cured – and has realized further climbing projects after having summited Everest. In autumn 2013, for example, Heidi scaled Cho Oyu without using bottled oxygen and in spring 2014 she stood on top of Makalu (with breathing mask). With Billi Bierling, Heidi shares the honor of having been the first German women to reach the summit of Makalu. Sand dedicated her three successes on eight-thousanders to her children, for her husband remained the Eiger North Face which she succeeded to climb a year ago, in December 2015. And last November, she tackled, along with the Swiss mountain guide Lorenz Frutiger, the legendary granite giant Fitz Roy in Patagonia – in vain, the weather put a spoke in their wheel. I asked the 50-year-old four questions about her climbing.

Heidi, what do you owe to the mountains, especially Mount Everest?

At Mount Everest (© Athlete / Bob Berger)

It is simply an incredible feeling to be able to stand on the highest point on earth. Knowing that your mental strength and physical fitness have brought you up there. Every new summit gives me a new perspective – not just the surrounding area, but also particularly on myself, on my life. It gives me strength and confidence.
I set the goal of climbing Everest during the chemotherapy, and this goal drew me out of my valley. Do not sit down and fall into self-pity, get up! Move and find the light at the end of the tunnel!

As a cancer sufferer you cheated death. Has this experience made you more courageous or at least more willing to take risks in the mountains?

I am now focusing more on things that really matter to me, which are close to my heart. We owe it to ourselves and the others to make use of every day. You have only one life. Use it!
I am not more willing to take risks than before. But since I am now more often in the mountains and pursue my goals more consistently, I take, at large, higher risks, but it’s worth it.

Heidi on Fitz Roy

After Everest you also climbed Cho Oyu and Makalu. That’s it? Or are you planning to scale other eight-thousanders?

I had a score to settle with Cho Oyu and in addition wanted to climb an eight-thousander without bottled oxygen. Makalu is climbed far more rarely than Everest and is a technically much more challenging mountain. Each project was planned in detail, but of cause sometimes things happen that can not be foreseen. So I was very lucky to be able to climb all three of them. At the moment I don’t want to say that I will never again climb an eight-thousander. We will see what the future holds. But there are many more mountaineering challenges for me, which are defined not only by altitude, such as the Eiger North Face (which I climbed on 20 December 2015), Fitz Roy in Patagonia, Mount Foraker in Alaska and many other mountains in the Alps and worldwide.

What pattern do you use to select your mountain destinations?

I don’t have any sophisticated strategy. A mountain destination must be attractive to me. Emotionally, visually, because of its history or its mountaineering challenge. There are usually several of these factors.
On the descent from Everest, I fell in love with Makalu. This overwhelming rock pyramid had beckoned to me. It is also considered to be a difficult 8000er, because of his height and technical challenges. The Eiger North Face – at the foot of which I had often been skiing and devoured the book “The White Spider” (by Heinrich Harrer about the first ascent of the wall in 1938) – of course fascinated me because of its tragic history. Only when I have found such a mountain, I start out to plan and prepare the project.

Steck on top of Eiger

While I got footsore during my “Power pilgrimage for Nepal”, Ueli Steck “ran” fleet-footed through the Eiger North Face (look at the video below). “Speedy Ueli” climbed the Heckmair route – the way of the first ascender in 1938 – solo in just two hours and 22 minutes. Thus, the 39-year-old top climber from Switzerland regained the speed record in this legendary, 1800-meter-high wall that he had lost in 2011 to his compatriot Dani Arnold (2:28 hours). In 2008, Steck had climbed the wall in 2:47 hours. “I had a good track and good conditions”, Ueli said after his tour de force through the North Face adding that it was “a beautiful experience and a great day”.

Soon in less than two hours?

The new record holder remained modest. “Climbing is not a competition. There are so many other factors that count like conditions, temperature, weather”, Ueli said. “Being six minutes faster than Dani, I think, that’s nothing. That’s not a big step.” He expects that the Eiger North Face will be climbed in less than two hours very soon: “I think that’s possible under good conditions, but the athlete has to take quite a lot of risk.” That might sound as if he himself is not willing to risk so much. But you never know – until Ueli’s next coup.

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.