is no record of a more heroic endurance.
1“Murder-Face” for “North Face”—Translator’s note.
1Arnold Lunn, A Century of Mountaineering, George Allen and Unwin Ltd., London, 1957.
THE Eiger’s Face is still covered in sheets of snow. It is snowing as if here were winter’s last defence-bastion, against which spring and summer are launching their attacks in vain. But the new Eiger-teams have already moved into the huts and inns of Alpiglen and the Kleine Scheidegg. Tents are springing up on the Alp. The German dialects of Bavarians and Austrians, to a lesser degree Italian and Schwyzerdütch, are to be heard everywhere.
Samuel Brawand, himself once a guide, later a lecturer and now a member of parliament, has raised his warning voice, a voice well respected among mountaineers. Brawand has special knowledge of the Eiger, for in 1921 he and his brother-guides Fritz Amatter and Fritz Steuri led the young Japanese climber Yuko Maki up the Mittellegi Ridge, to achieve the first ascent of that exacting route.
In an interview given to the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Brawand said:
It is a fact that several ropes are again interested in attempts on the North Face of the Eiger. Here in Grindelwald, we have so far heard of four parties.
Your paper has asked me to state the position of the Rescue-Service in the event of a new attempt on the Face. To date, neither the local corps of guides nor the Section of the Swiss Alpine Club have made a serious pronouncement on the subject. In my view it is unnecessary to take any decisions. Even if the corps of guides were to decide not to fetch down the body of anyone who started to climb the Face—which the administration in Berne might empower them to do—what would be achieved by such a ruling? Would it act as a deterrent? I do not believe it would. To the men who climb the Face of the Eiger it is all one whether their bodies are left up there or brought down. It would be ludicrous indeed to threaten not to fetch down even those in distress on the Face. If people up there shout for help and the guides are in a position to bring them that help, then of course they will always do so. The only time when they won’t do it is when the dangers are so great as to make it obvious that no rescue attempt could stand a possible chance of success.
Last autumn, the administration in Berne issued a ban on all climbing on the North Face. It has since been withdrawn, and rightly so. To start with, it could never be effective because the fine imposed by the law is so small; and, in the second place, you cannot really put a veto on any given method of committing suicide.
In this fight against “North-Face-Fever” the Press has a very important duty. It should set its face against pandering to the public’s insatiable greed for sensation. Unfortunately, pictures have already been published which border on the irreverent. Finally, it should be remembered that there are more important tasks in this world than the ascent of the Eiger’s North Face. I have myself taken part in first ascents and know how uncommonly satisfying such successes are; but one knows, too, that they are only steps in human development….
These are good, sensible words, well spoken by Herr Brawand. They bridge the gap between different kinds of men; they warn without condemning. But even this experienced Alpine climber regards an attempt to climb the North Face as a complicated and expensive form of suicide. He speaks of the great sense of well-being brought by a successful first ascent; but he keeps silence about the impalpable and imponderable mainspring which moves men to accomplish the extraordinary. Perhaps his diagnosis of “North-Face-Fever” is not so far out. Brawand’s object, like that of any scientific, traditional doctor, is to keep the fever down. But surely the fever is itself a sign that a body is fighting for its own health. Let us stick to the unpleasant comparison. The Eiger-bacillus has arrived and has attacked the human race. It is—as we have premised from the very start—the bacillus of the everlasting adventure, that lure which always assails the younger generation, and endows the young with a terrifying impetus and strength.
The fever will, in the end, master the bacillus; but by that time the North Face of the Eiger will have lost its claim to inaccessibility. The gigantic precipice will have lost none of its beauty, its might or its perilous nature, for it is so fashioned that every new party which comes to grips with it has to put forward the very best of which men on a mountain are capable. In this sense every climb of the North Face will always be a first ascent. But the fever will have subsided and nobody will talk of a bacillus any more. The conception of the Eiger’s North Face will by then have become part of man’s spiritual heritage. Note carefully: his spiritual heritage. One cannot defeat or conquer mountains, one can only climb them. “Defeat” and “conquest” have already become hackneyed expressions, senselessly repeated hundreds of times, false and arrogant descriptions of mountaineering successes. In any case, one cannot “defeat” one of nature’s superb defences such as the Eiger’s Face; it sounds as if one had built a cable ropeway from Alpiglen to the summit of the Eiger. But even that would not be a “defeat”; it would simply be the annihilation of the North Face, its eradication from the climber’s vocabulary.
These reflections are not meant in any way as criticisms designed to belittle that excellent man Samuel Brawand. On the contrary. He held out a hand in reconciliation; his views already foreshadowed the coming turn of events, when good sense and understanding would triumph over mere passion. For alongside the “North-Face-Fever” there has burned an “Anti-Eiger-Fever” which disrupted peace and quiet just as much as did those plucky, unaffected boys who failed to return from the Face. The argument was no longer one of principle; it had become one of men and of human life….
Seen from this angle of a spiritual change, 1937 was a remarkably interesting year, even if it did not bring final success.
To start with, there was the Decree about the North Face which the Government in Berne issued at the beginning of July:
The following is supplementary to Paragraph 25 of the Regulations for Guides and Porters in the Canton of Berne issued on July 30 1914.
1. It is in the discretion of the Chiefs of the Rescue-Section to undertake rescue attempts following accidents on the North Face of the Eiger.
2. Parties intending to climb the North Face must be duly warned by the Rescue-stations and by the Guides before they start on the ascent. In particular their attention must be drawn to the fact that, in the event of an accident, no rescue operations will be laid on. (Author’s comment: not only Herr Brawand’s words already quoted, but the actual assistance offered and given, were to prove that, in spite of all pronouncements, guides would continue to serve the cause of humanity by doing any- and everything in their power to save climbers in peril of their lives.)
3. The Governor of Interlaken is to promulgate this decision to the Chief Guides of the District, for communication to the Rescue-stations and the Guides.
In the name of the Judiciary, President: Jos. County Clerk:
I. V. Hubert
During these early days of July 1937 there were already several parties ready to brave the ascent or at least an attempt on it. Two very good climbers from the Grisons had already gone away because of the bad conditions. An Italian party was still there, consisting of Giuseppe Piravano, heralded as one of Italy’s best ice-men and Bruno Detassis, the best-known climber in the savage Brenta Dolomites, who came from Trento. Both men were professional guides. Another party training
