49| Drama of the Eiger
For two years those who made their way to the Swiss town of Kleine scheidegg, with a pair of binoculars could take a look at the gruesome spectacle before them.
Hanging from the north face of the eiger, known as the world's toughest climb, was the body of a man.
Swaying slightly with the wind in the summer. Frozen to the rocks in winter. But with more questions than answers, and even less proof of the claim, fellow mountaineers and complete strangers began to tell their own tale.
There was a group of 4, and they didn’t belong here. The dangling man could have been helped but the others refused. Or maybe, it was one who refused.
And maybe it was one pushed the other two to their deaths, after stealing their gear, when they didn’t agree.
The dangling man’s partner must be a killer.
Or so, that’s what they say.
Welcome back to tragedy with a view.
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The first time that the north face of the Eiger was attempted to be climbed was in 1935 and the first 6 people to try, died. Of those who followed, the death rate was 50%. This is a daunting and chilling number to warp your mind around and therefore lead to its nickname, the murderous wall. The fact that more people died climbing the Eiger than made it to the top is sobering, but to the right person, it is also enticing.
Today the climb is not as deadly with new climbing techniques and better prepared climbers, but The Eiger’s north face is known as the wall of death and with its history, there’s no wonder why.
The Eiger is a peak that sits in the Bernese oberland region of Switzerland. This area is surrounded by picturesque lakes and sharp peaks creating a contrast that even the most well traveled people love.
Switzerland is just north of Italy and east of France and the Eiger sits in the alpine region and within a mountain range that spreads across 8 countries in Europe, spanning 750 miles or 12,000 km.
This mountain range started its formation when the tectonic plates of Eurasia and Africa collided roughly 30 million years ago.
The Eiger reaches 13,015 feet or 3,967 meters in elevation and is also known as the orge, Eigerwand, and Eiger Nordwand.
Of the 3 mountains that make up the southeastern side of the Bernese alps mountain range, the Eiger, the monch and jungfrau, it is said, mythologically speaking, that the Monch, or the Monk, will guard the Virgin, or Jungrau, from the Orge, or Eiger.
In addition to this, there are mythical winds that show up from the South, called Foehn. This translates to hair dryer, and these winds are said to sweep across the face, surprising climbers with harsh warm winds and vicious storms.
Specifically, the north face of the Eiger is a vertical mile of essentially limestone and black ice, which makes it the largest north facing rock in the Alps along with the most deadly.
Part of the reason that the north face of the Eiger is so deadly is because of the combination of the fact that the face is very exposed to weather, and since the weather comes from the north west, it tends to get hit by more severe storms which creates a perfect combination for more frequent avalanches, along with ice and rock that are not stable.
In addition to this more current years are seeing the ice fields diminishing and this creates another problem since the rock is known to be loose and unstable making your grip kind of questionable. Along with this, the deterioration of the face has created less ledges and more overhangs that climbers must maneuver over.
And because this face is so large, there’s really not much beneath you other than very small ledges in the event that you fall, meaning that the likelihood that your ropes break free from the rock and you fall all the way to the base of the mountain is high.
And the location of the mountain leaves very little sunlight hitting the north face, meaning that climbers tend to get cold and wet and stay cold and wet. Only in the best of conditions will the sun shine on certain area of the North Face for a maximum of 1 hour in the evening.
In addition to the what is called rotten rock which is the rock that is just unstable and shears off pretty easily. It is highly recommended that when you climb the north face of the Eiger that you know exactly the route that you plan to take, you study the landmarks and you know where you are going, because there are minuscule changes overtime that make things appear different than what they had even a few years prior.
And this is a pretty standard way to climb that you study the location that you’re going to, you know what you’re getting yourself into and you know the route that you wanna take and you know alternate routes, decent routes and safety precautions as well.
To date over 60 people have died attempting to climb the Eiger and Between the years of the first attempt in 1935 and 1957, any rescue attempt had failed. And so it became a known condition that when you attempt the Eiger you either succeed or you die. No one is coming to help you.
Interestingly, the Eiger is not that far separated from society. There is a ski resort that sits at the base of the mountain called Jungrau (young fr-ow) Ski Resort, it is a 1 hour train ride from Kleine Scheidegg (cline schny-dick) to get to the ski resort and there is a hostel nearby for climbers to stay at if there is room. The hostel is called Eigergletscher (eiger- glet-sure) Guesthouse.
Additionally, there was once train tracks that led through a tunnel through the Eiger. But, there was a section that collapsed the outer wall of the north face, but was still structurally sound- so the face was adorned with balconies, giving spectacular views of the towns nearby. This is called the Eigerwand (eiger-vand) Station and this station was transitioned from balconies to glass windows, and then closed in 2016 for a newer and faster rail system. However, some climbers have found a way to access the balconies through the windows and will hunker down here to escape storms or not sleep on the face of the eiger.
On August 3, 1957 two Italians decided to try to see if they could become the first Italians to climb the north face of the eiger.
Claudio Corti and Stefano longhi were both members of a prestigious climbing group in Italy known as the Lecco spiders. This group is well known around the world for making difficult ascents, So it was no surprise when the Eiger came up.
Claudio was 29 years old and was probably the more experienced climber of the two even though Stefano was older at 44 years old. Arguably, even though Stefano was a member of this prestigious group he was one of the weaker climbers. But still, a weak climber within this group is still a very strong climber.
This group activity seeks out the best climbers and mountaineers in order to make a name for itself in the ascent of big mountains.
But with their background and knowledge and membership with this really highly valued group, the pair, for whatever reason, decided to not really plan what they were doing when it came to the Eiger. Their Hope had been that they would find a trail of pitons (pee-tons), which is essentially a metal spike with a hole that you can hook into with a carabiner on it. Sometimes climbers will install them as they climb or they are already drilled and stabilized in the rock that climbers can use to hook onto as they make their way up a known route.
So because they were hoping to just follow somebody else’s lead, they didn’t bring a route description with them either and because of this their first two days on the wall was spent just looking for where the route was.
Because of this, they were only a third of the way up the wall on their third day. But this was when they ended up seeing two German climbers Gunther Nothdurft (like goth: noth-dwer-ft) and Franz mayer. Both Gunther and franz were 22 years old and they were among the top alpinist in Germany.
the Italians and Germans kind of ended up on the same line because they were climbing the same route, and they decided that they wanted to climb together because four would be better than two. But they stayed separated as to the gear they were using and how they climbed. But this was a good thing for Claudio and Stefano because the Germans knew the route up the Eiger.
By the end of the day, the four of them had made it just passed the halfway point, but it was during the night that the Italians would be able to pay the Germans back for their knowledge of the route.
As they slept, the Germans bag of food slipped from where they were sleeping and in the morning the German awoke to having no food left. Claudia was quick to agree to share what food they had between the four of them.
Which as a reminder, is already diminished due to them looking for the route their first two days.
But, In Addition to this, they were climbing extremely slow. By the 5th day, they were just now entering the last 3rd of the climb. So in the 1950s this wasn’t uncommon for the Eiger to take several days to climb. So no alarms were going off yet, but it was an early sign of trouble.
Bystanders in the valley were watching the climbers through binoculars and could see that they were making progress, so down in the valley, no one had any idea what was actually occurring on the face.
Today, the climb can be done in about 2 days, or if you go for a single push, the average is about 20 hours.
But, the teams were slowing down. In this top third of the climb there was a 3 pitch section that should have taken a single day to get through, and this group took 2 days. Stefano was becoming more and more tired and frostbite was making the movements of his hands and feet extremely difficult to move and have confidence that he had a good hold.
And in addition to this, Gunther was starting to feel the effects of altitude sickness, and was pretty consistently feeling bad.
Then, bystanders could see that the movement had stopped. They could see three men collected toward the top of a pitch, with the 4th, almost an entire rope length below.
They quickly surmised that the man at the bottom had fallen and climbed onto a narrow ridge.
It was Stefano. Had had in fact fallen and broken a leg and Claudio, Gunther and Franz didn’t have the strength or leverage to pull him up to them.
Knowing their best chance to save their friend was to reach the top and then get down to the valley to launch a rescue, the three started climbing again.
But, from the valley, spectators correctly assumed that one had fallen and then saw the three start to climb. It was then, when the trio was about 1000 feet or 304 meters from the summit, that the view of them from the valley was lost because of clouds and fog rolling in.
On the face, Claudio, Gunther and Franz all heard a sudden rumble. Gunter and Franz leaned hard against the wall and sheltered their heads with their arms, and Claudio processed what was happening seconds too late.
Rocks above them had collapsed and were now raging down the face, right toward the three men. Gunter and Franz were hit, but unharmed, but Claudio was knocked away from the group, falling 60 feet down to a ledge. And Claudio at this point can’t keep climbing.
Gunther and Franz lowered their tent down on a rope to Claudio, and Claudio sent his climbing gear back up. It was now up to Gunter and Franz to climb to the summit, retreat down the ridge and get help for both Claudio and Stefano.
Down in the valley, through the fog, they could located Stefano and Claudio, but not the other.
In the valley was Swiss alpinist Paul Seiler, and he knew trouble when he saw it and he was immediate in his decision to launch a rescue.
Paul went straight to the Swiss alpine clubs grindelwald rescue section, which the Eiger fell into, and they were like, no we can’t help you. Their stance was that The Eiger was too dangerous to climb and they were not going to help anyone dumb enough to try it.
Paul, didn’t take that lightly, and contacted his friend, Erich Friedli, who was an expert in mountain rescue and Erich assembled a 21 man team to come help.
But it didn’t stop there, Lionel terray, an alpinist and Ludwig gramminger who was the head of Munich mountain guide rescue both offered their help, and it was quickly accepted.
And finally, a group of polish climbers who were in the area training for an expedition in the Himalayas offered to help as well.
In all 50 men converged on the mountain to assist in a rescue of these 4 climbers, with no idea how to get the men or the equipment needed to the summit in order to help them.
But they didn’t have time to sit and discuss what to do- for those clouds and fog were a precursor for a storm rolling in. And it was coming hard and fast. Those stepping in to the shoes as rescuers knew that at this point minutes counted.
Part of the group boarded a train and went to the pass that was between the peaks of Jungfrua (young fr ow) and the monch (munch), and then proceeded with a 2 mile or 3.2 hike to the summit of the Eiger. The rest of the group climbed the 6000 foot or 1829 meter West flank of the Eger, which is considered the standard descent route so it’s a well-known and well traveled route.
After eight days on the wall, both claudio and Stefano were alive, but barely holding on. Unfortunately, by the time that the people in the valley were able to get sight of them, they could see the two Italians, but still could not locate the two Germans.
The team who took the train brought an anchoring winch system with them, and as they were first on the scene, they started setting up immediately.
Paul Seiler, the first man who initiated the start of this rescue mission, hooked himself onto a cable and started working his way down, but they figured out that the winch had been set up to lower down 200 feet or 61 meters too far to the west.
And this is really important to make sure the winch is set up correctly because in order to retrieve these men, they needed to winch system to have the mechanical power to help pull both the healthy climber going down, and the injured climber back up to the summit. A person, or people, would not be able to do this on their own.
So Paul comes back up and they repositioned the winch and this time Erich friedli hooked in and started down and figured out that they were still too far to the west.
As Erich was coming back up, the second group met them at the summit and set their winch in the correct location. Again, because of the rotten rock, it made anchoring these winches extremely difficult because even at the summit the stability of the rock was in question.
To kind of help ease the minds of the men that were going down the cables, others were acting as a human deadman anchors- which essentially means that those acting as the anchors were holding onto ropes that were tied to the winches, basically to act as a backup in the event that the rock beneath the winch broke away.
At about 9:00 am, Alfred Hellepart was 750 feet or 225 meters down the cables and got to where they assumed someone was, for there was a red bivouac (biv-oo-wac) tent. They were correct, and here Claudio stuck his head out of the tent and asked if Alfred had any food. Alfred only had a chocolate bar with him and happily handed it over.
Claudio was so hungry that he shoved the entire bar into his mouth, without taking it out of the wrapper. Alfred noticed at this point that the entire ledge that was in arms reach was completely cleaned of snow and ice.
This was because Claudio was attempting to get as much ice and snow and water from the rocks that he could, and he figured out a decent method of using his breath as a way to melt the small amounts of snow and ice and then licking up the water it created.
After about an hour, Alfred finally got Claudio into a safety harness, attached the harness to himself, who was attached to the winch cable, and then he gave the cue to be pulled up. This section of the edger was not quite at a vertical angle, which required Alfred to, as he was being pulled by the winch, walk up the rock face, with Claudio attached to his back.
59 minutes later, they arrived at the summit of the Eiger and with it was the first official successful rescue in the Eiger’s history.
But, there were still 3 men who needed to be accounted for. As they discussed how to go about reaching Stephano they came to the daunting realization that the winch was pretty much at its capacity with rescuing Claudio. Stephano was likely 300 feet or 91 meters, maybe more past where Claudio was found. In short, the winch was not able to manage longer lengths of rope and they knew they wouldn’t be able to generate the power needed to pull two more men up the face of the mountain at that distance.
Which if they sent someone down, would potentially strand a second man on the face, and with the storm coming in, those responsible just were not willing to risk it. This entire time they are having this conversation and attempt to problem solve, and are discussing the logistical nightmare it would be to send someone else down the face, Claudio is slowly dying inside of a snow hole at the summit.
One of the men finally realize this and start the evacuation process, where a team would essentially carry him down the west side of the mountain, which is a mile long or almost 2 km trek.
But, because of the time they finally started this and the storm coming in, they only make it about a quarter of that distance before realizing they would have to dig into yet another snow cave and wait to descend the remaining distance in daylight the following morning.
This means that Claudio would spend a total of 10 days and 9 nights on the mountain. He was taken to a hospital in Interlaken where he miraculously lived and would make a full recovery.
Claudio had lost 20kg or 44 lbs in the 9 days he was on the eiger.
Unfortunately, the following morning, when everyone began checking to see if they could locate Stefano and determine a rescue plan for him, they could see his body was stiff, and a rescue would now be a recovery. Stefano’s body was no longer clinging to the ridge, but instead swaying in the winds that tore across the north face.
Because of the really precarious nature of rescue and recovery and the fact that the first success came literally the day before, they decided to leave Stefano’s body where it was. And with no leads on where the Germans were, the rescue was called off.
Two years later, In 1959 a Dutch newspaper paid a group of professional Swiss guides to climb to the summit, lower down one of their own and retrieve Stefano from the face of the Eiger.
Immediately, though, everyone blamed Cladio for the deaths of Stefano, Gunter and Franz. Not just because he survived, but some thought that he had pushed the others to their deaths.
The stories that ranged in a variety of truths or lies spread far, and not just in the news, but in books as well. The White Spider being one of those books and now known to be the least accurate representation of what the 4 had encountered.
These stories often went off of the poor interpretation of Claudio’s answers while in the hospital, coupled with the police when they got involved, trying to find a way to connect Claudio to the deaths of Gunter and Franz. In addition to this, Claudio’s background in climbing was ignored and many implied that Claudio was a beginner and beginners have no right to go anywhere near the Eiger. He was called incompetent at best, and murderer at worst.
But it was while he was in the hospital that the story went from questions, to accusations and finally to blame. A swiss writer, Guido Tonella, was self proclaimed, fluent in italian, and while at the hospital became Claudio’s self designated translator.
You might be able to see the problem here- a man who could speak both swiss and italian, who was a reporter, was allowing all of these other reporters to come in and ask their questions while Claudio answered. Guido would basically have all the hard work of deciding which questions to ask, and also get the answers directly from Claudio and then provide those answers to the asker of the questions.
If you don’t see the problem with that- Guido was not actually fluent in Italian, and was providing incorrect information to the media, and he became a credible source of information because he was getting the “answers” directly from Claudio and interpreting them.
So we already know that he was not as fluent as he thought he was in italian, which led to miscommunications that only fed rumors. Further, some of these writers who came to question Claudio were climbers of the 30s, where needing a rescue was a huge disgrace to the climbing community. One Italian climber and writer, Riccardo Cassin, stepped into his room and started yelling at him that he abandoned Stefano because he was a coward, and that the need for a rescue brought shame to the Italian climbers. Then, a second Italian climber, by the name of Carlo Mauri, stepped into the room and pretty much did the same.
However, it later was discovered that both Riccardo and Carlo were in the swiss alps because they had intended to be the first italians to climb the exact same route that Claudio had attempted. They were, in simple terms, fueled by their egos and angry that the first Italian ascent had been almost stolen away from them. They, however, would not be the first to climb the north face for the italian’s, as that victory would not be claimed until 5 years later in 1962.
But the barrage did not diminish once Claudio was out of the hospital. The media claimed that Claudio knew more than he was telling. both Germany and Switzerland media were calling him a murderer and that he had clearly killed the germans, and stole their gear.
To them, their claim was supported by the fact that Claudio had received a head wound from either the rocks that caused him to fall or the fall itself. They saw this wound being from that of an ax, like the one the Germans had carried with them. So they determined that the Germans had tried to defend themselves, Claudio overcame them, stole their gear, pushed them off the face of the mountain and then down climbed where he pretended to be too injured to climb and needed rescued.
Once Stefano’s body was recovered and an autopsy was done, this in part helped to support Claudio’s story as this was when they discovered he had broken his leg. But, of course, there were some who twisted this. One Italian writer speculated that there was no way Stefano broke his leg in the fall. And this was because “broken legs can't move” and many witnessed Stefano moving around on the wall and ledge after his fall. Of course we know better than to believe that, but in a time where some felt the need to blame a person, Claudio was the only option. Everyone else had died or disappeared.
Finally, in 1961, a group of expeditioners found proof that Gunter and Franz were the official 14th summiters of the Eiger’s North Face. On the western ridge, their bodies were found frozen and toughened by the elements, positioned in a way and in a location that is compatible with them getting caught in an avalanche.
In addition to this, just like Claudio had explained, they had Claudio’s climbing gear with them.
Claudio passed away at the age of 81 in 2010 and through the years, those who climbed with him were finally able to understand how he survived the Eiger. His personality is not just described as strong, but unrelenting. It was almost as if his determination grew as events became more difficult.
Unfortunately for Claudio, some of the writers who either insinuated or outright claimed that he was the cause of death for his partners on the Eiger, never took back their words. Some even doubled down in their claims, making this a lifelong difficulty that he would carry with him no matter where he went. Especially in the non-climbing community, where the truth and understanding of finding Gunther and Franz’s bodies did not carry weight.
While some know him as among the best climbers, many more recognize him as a controversial climber. Despite the truth being know, Claudio never sat down and told the full story - probably because he knew he would never be fully believed by those who he spoke to. The white spider, which is the book with the least accurate timeline of events and the most accusations, has been reprinted time and time again. The author passed away before any changes were made to the text, though it is doubtful that he would have changed his stance no matter what truth surfaced.
But, as the truth was found, other accounts began to circulate, releasing Claudio from the accusations, in part. The Corti-Drama and the Prisoner of Eiger are both books that were released between 2003 and 2008, which relayed the amount of injustices that Claudio faced over the events.
