difficult crack and there found a small stance, protected from falling stones by an overhang, on which one could even sit in an emergency—in terms of this particular Face, an ideal bivouac. There they dumped everything they could spare and started down again. The second thunderstorm of the day caught them on the far side of the traverse. Dripping wet, and climbing down through vertical waterfalls, they disposed of the 2,700 feet of the lower part of the Face and got back to their tent at Alpiglen before dark.
The rain led to a fresh period of bad weather. Days lengthened into weeks. On August 6th, during a temporary improvement, Vörg and Rebitsch teaming-up with their friends Eidenschink and Möller climbed the North Face of the Great Fiescherhorn. This magnificent wall of snow and ice, first climbed by Willo Welzenbach in 1930, had also been chosen for a final climb, before they turned their backs on the Bernese Oberland for this year, by Fraissl and Brankowsky. Many others too had grown tired of waiting.
Rebitsch and Vörg, however, stayed on. It was now the start of the fourth week since they had withdrawn from the Eiger’s Face. Still they never lost patience, made no careless, irresponsible move. The Press had also quitened down a good deal about the Eiger. There was one article in the Frankfurter Zeitung which caused great amusement in well-informed circles. In it a Mr. M. gave all and sundry what was intended for well-meaning advice. For instance, he suggested that the traversing ropes ought to be fixed at the Hinterstoisser Traverse during a period of Fòhn, that is to say during warm weather, when the ice had melted, the following period of bad weather should be spent waiting in the valley and a fresh start made on the Face as soon as the barometer began to rise again. The Zurich paper Sport expressed its opposition to such “cookery book recipes” in witty, ironical terms.
The traversing ropes were already there. They had been fixed, not during a spell of Föhn, but during a spell of thundery bad weather. But it looked as if they were going to remain unused till the following summer.
On August 9th Berne at last forecast fine weather. On the 10th the hot sun cleared masses of fresh snow from the Face. And early on the 11th Rebitsch and Vörg started out on their second attempt.
It was only 10.30 when they reached their depot on top of the Pillar. They moved on across the roped-traverse to their bivouac-place very heavily laden. They were in such splendid form that they were back at the top of the Pillar by one in the afternoon to fetch up the rest of their gear. And by 5 p.m., everything was safely lodged at the bivouac-place. They had even managed to drag fleece-lined sleeping bags and air mattresses up to it. They improved their sleeping quarters by building a low wall of stones, then they stretched their tent-sack from a projection overhead, to keep the heavier drips off them, and enjoyed a precious night’s sleep in the “Swallow’s Nest” they had built for themselves high up on the precipice.
Next day they climbed on, over ice-covered rock and ice, and achieved the difficult ascent of the overhanging cliff between the First and Second Ice-fields. Then came five hours of upward traversing—twenty rope’s-lengths diagonally upwards—across the Second Ice-field. Then the ice-plastered rocky step leading from the Second to the Third Ice-field. Then the Ice-field itself….
The watchers at the telescopes down in Grindelwald, up at the Kleine Scheidegg, were amazed. They had already seen much wonderful climbing on the Eiger’s Face. All the men who had come and had died on it had climbed wonderfully. But nobody had yet seen anything like the assurance and care of this pair, Rebitsch from the Tirol and Vörg the Munich man. Would these two succeed, at last; or would bad weather come, once again, to rob them?
It wasn’t a question of coming; it was already there. Above the arête of the “Flatiron”, the men were swallowed up by the mists. Up above that, there still loomed more than 2,000 feet of the summit wall, a precipice about which nobody knew anything, for no living being had yet reported on it.
The pair climbed on up the steep ice, penetrated by rock ledges, to where Sedlmayer and Mehringer had spent their last bivouac. There they were half expecting to find Mehringer’s body, which Udet had seen from his plane the previous September, frozen rigid in its steps. They seemed fated always to be meeting dead men.
But there was no body … nothing but a couple of pitons in the rock.
It was 7 p.m. They had reached a height of 11,000 feet, and it was starting to hail. They had come to climb the Face if they could, or at least to reconnoitre its upper precipices. A little lower down there on the left was the start of the great “Ramp”; Vörg and Rebitsch started to traverse across towards it on steep ice. Then, suddenly, hail and rain began to pour down in such absolute torrents that their curiosity about the rest of the route was completely quenched. Their only desire was to crawl under their tent-sack and find some shelter from the deluge.
Nowhere could they find a good spot for a bivouac; nor, for that matter, a bad one either. Finally, they were forced to hack a tiny place out of the ice, on which to pass the night. The cold became so intense that a film of ice formed inside the tent-sack owing to the condensation. For the first time the two men suffered intensely from the cold. All night long icy sleet drummed on the tent. Every now and then they heard the crashing of stones unpleasantly close at hand.
Towards dawn the sleet ceased. As daylight came, the mists parted, but not to reveal a fine morning. A great black bank of cloud was approaching, full of menace, from the west. There was only one possible decision: to retreat.
It was a painful thought, to have to retrace that long dangerous way; but it was the thought of self-preservation.
Bitter-cold as the night had been, it had failed to numb or weaken either of the climbers. Down they climbed, rope’s length on rope’s length. They reached the place where the cliff down to the Second Icefield has to be descended on the two 100-foot ropes joined together. They roped down; then they tried to pull the ropes down after them; they refused to come down. It was still the day of hemp ropes which, when wet, became as stiff as cables. They both tugged on one end of the rope; still it refused to budge. So Rebitsch just climbed, free and unbelayed, up to the top again and cleared the knot by which the ropes had jammed. Assuredly, the North Face had not robbed these two either of their strength or of their ability to make decisions. Both were as strong and courageous as on the first day.
The descent of the Second Ice-field seemed endless. All the time, little snow-slides were coming down it, forcing their bodies away from the steep slope, but they both stood firm. They climbed steadily downwards, safeguarding one another with ice-pitons. The surface of the ice had gone soft and slushy from so much water pouring down. It had become necessary to hack away quite a foot before a piton could be banged into the firm ice below. This all took a long time, but Rebitsch and Vörg continued to descend astonishingly quickly.
The next task was to climb and rope down the overhanging rock-cliff to the First Ice-field. At times they had to knock in four pitons before they could fix the sling for the abseil securely. In spite of the bad weather and the pressure of time, they did not risk a single hasty hand-hold. This was an orderly retreat, rigidly controlled; no flight from the mountain.
They descended the First Ice-field; then Rebitsch was already traversing to their first bivouac—that luxury bivouac, the “Swallow’s Nest”. Soon he reached it and Vörg, following him, was still on ice. At that moment a horrible clatter and whining set in; stones went whizzing past his head. Lumps landed close around him, cutting holes in his rucksack; but when the fall of stones was over, Ludwig’s skull was undamaged. At five o’clock he joined Rebitsch at the bivouac.
Both were soaked to the skin. Nothing could be more inviting than to use the three or four remaining hours of daylight to continue the descent. The traverse was no problem; it was ready roped. Nothing would have been more natural than for these two to have been mastered by their longing for the safety of the valley. But neither of them was exhausted, nor were their senses in any
