The Beckoning Silence (34 page)

‘I felt like that with Heckmair,’ Ray nodded. ‘We’ve got to climb it now,’ he said fervently as the train pulled out of the station and we both craned our necks to look at the face sliding past the windows.

‘You know,’ Ray added thoughtfully. ‘It’s not every day you meet someone who has had a personal audience with Hitler.’

I stared at him open-mouthed. It suddenly put the history of the man into sharp perspective.

14 Look well to each step

The train rattled slowly through the lush meadows past the hamlet of Alpiglen, curving beneath the foot of the Eiger’s shadowed north wall as it headed towards the cluster of hotels at Kleine Scheidegg. Both Ray and I craned our necks to look up at the face. It was grey, menacing and inhospitable. We were silent, each quietly contemplating the coming climb. I looked at Hanspeter Feuz, tanned, handsome and smiling. I wondered what I looked like.
I’ve probably got pupils like saucers.
I smiled and glanced back at Ray, who hadn’t taken his eyes from the face.

Looking over his shoulder I could see where ice dribbled from the lower reaches of the Spider, hanging in the weightless chill of frigid air above the colossal roof of the Second Ice Field. The dark gash of the Ramp cut leftwards from the top of the prominent arête of the Flat Iron. For some reason the Third Ice Field was obscured by the angle we were looking at the mountain. I thought of being up there alone. I thought of Adi Mayr and wished I hadn’t.

Of all the dramas of success and tragedy that have been enacted on the Eiger’s vast north face it was Toni Kurz’s fate that affected me most powerfully. Brave, resourceful, obdurate, he died alone, despite Herculean efforts to save himself. Few could fail to be moved by the pathos of his lonely and torturously drawn-out death. It has stayed with me throughout my climbing life and after Siula Grande it became an even more poignant, haunting memory.

Adolf Mayr’s fate, or Adi as the young Austrian climber was known to his friends, also struck me with resounding force. When I learned that some climbers actually chose to climb alone – solo climbing as it is known – I was quite dumbfounded. The concept seemed so overwhelmingly dangerous I couldn’t for the life of me work out why anyone would even consider undertaking such a rash and perilous ascent.

On a few occasions I have tried my hand at solo climbing and I confess that I am not a great fan of the pastime. Sometimes it has made sense to un-rope and solo up ice fields, when moving roped together would otherwise entail the risk of both climbers being pulled to their deaths if one slipped or was knocked off. I have climbed a few alpine peaks alone and gained a certain degree of satisfaction afterwards, but it was mainly to do with being glad to be alive.

Although physically and technically quite capable of solo climbing, mentally I feel that I am poorly equipped for the task. Soloing on mountains I feel alone and miss the shared companionship of a partner to enjoy the adventure. On rock I am simply intimidated. What I can never get out of my mind is that however well I might be climbing there are two elements that make what I am doing an unacceptable gamble.

First, I am keenly aware that we are all fallible, even the very best. We don’t plan to do it; it just happens. Climbers die because they make mistakes. Death is the price you pay if you are too human at the wrong time.

The second thought that I find hardest to shake off is that even if I climb immaculately there is no guarantee that the medium I am climbing – be it snow, ice or rock – will behave in the same accommodating manner. The tiny edge of rock that I am pulling on may snap with such startling speed that I would be falling before I have a chance to grab another handhold. However much I might believe in myself, I still have to play Russian Roulette with the chance of a hold breaking off.

Sadly, a couple of friends have been caught out by this very problem and some brilliant lives came to an abrupt end. It was what they chose to do and willingly, in the full knowledge of the possible consequences, so I never felt that they had wasted their lives; rather that we were the ones who had lost something brilliant and precious. It was after all what had defined them, made their lives distinct and rich.

Having said that, I have always admired those who can do such feats. It seems to me to be the ultimate challenge of climbing, the most aesthetic expression of climbing that can be made – one person’s skill, nerve and self-control against the rock or ice or mountain. It strips the climber of any connection with the world and he moves into a dimension that few of us would dare enter. It demands respect, even if one privately feels it is an act of madness. I have always made a point of carefully standing to one side when watching a solo climber at work.

On 28 August 1961 Adi Mayr made the first attempt to climb the north face of the Eiger alone. At first he climbed smoothly, confidently and without hesitation. The watchers gathered around the telescopes on the hotel balconies began to feel reassured that here was an expert climber truly in his element. When he reached the Ice Hose he chose to avoid it altogether by climbing a variant line up the brittle and awkwardly stratified rock on its left side. Like many climbers from the eastern Alps, Adi felt more comfortable on rock than ice and when he reached the Second Ice Field his speed dropped and he was forced to cut steps in places where the ice was steep and hard. Nevertheless, he had reached Death Bivouac by two-thirty in the afternoon where he chose to rest until the following day.

Although a sensible and logical decision, it may have been his undoing. He no doubt reasoned that with the sun on the upper part of the face the traverse of the Third Ice Field to reach the Ramp would be too dangerous, bordering on suicidal. Rocks melted free by the heat of the sun were funnelled into the Spider and then spewed directly down the Third Ice Field.

Adi was providing good business for the telescope owners as the queues of paying spectators waited patiently for their turn to gawp at him. I wonder how many half hoped to see him fall. The weather was fine and the proximity of the sheltered rocks of the Ramp a couple of rope lengths away must have been a great temptation to Adi. With at least six hours of daylight remaining and the Ramp in sunshine he could reasonably have hoped to reach the Traverse of the Gods – even the Exit Cracks – before nightfall. With luck the rock in the Ramp would have been dried by the sun, except where spray from the melting ice in the Waterfall Chimney pitch had leeched down, dampening the adjacent rock walls.

Climbing wet rock would not have been a problem for a man of Adi’s skill. The Waterfall Chimney pitch, sometimes sodden with water and sometimes glazed with ice, is frequently the hardest section of climbing in the Ramp. In winter it can be completely jammed with a plug of ice near its top where the walls rear outwards and arm-thick icicles can block progress as effectively as a portcullis. He chose instead the fifteen-hour bivouac at Death Bivouac’s sheltered cave, a long time to sit alone and think of what you have committed to. The freedom of intense concentration and precise climbing technique were no longer there to keep his fears at bay.

In the morning Adi was observed traversing the Third Ice Field slowly and with great care, cutting steps as he went. It was icy cold and his choice to bivouac and avoid the rock-fall seemed a wise one until he reached the first few rock pitches of the Ramp. Here the rock is sound and by no means technically difficult, yet Adi was observed to be climbing in a cramped, hesitant manner. Had the long anxious night eroded his spirit, eaten away at his confidence and élan?

As they watched him climb into the shadowed, icy maw of the Ramp they noticed that he had still not chosen to get out his rope and use a self-belaying system. If the difficulty had been troubling him then this is the first thing that he would have done: perhaps he was moving slowly because he wasn’t fully warmed up after the long bivouac and the previously wet rock was now heavily iced with a treacherous patina of verglas.

As he approached the Waterfall Chimney pitch his progress slowed dramatically. He had to make a delicate traverse just beneath the chimney. It is at this point that a feature called the Silver Trench becomes apparent when the sun strikes deeply into the Ramp in the late afternoon.

Like many names on the mountain the Silver Trench is a pleasant name for an otherwise intimidating section of climbing. I had often wondered how these evocative and sometimes lyrical names had come into being. Perhaps the Traverse of the Gods was so called not because of its magnificent and exposed position on the edge of a 5000-foot chasm but because climbers edging across it had the unnerving feeling that they would be joining the Gods rather more quickly than they had planned.

The Silver Trench, however, was coined not by climbers but by the spectators at Kleine Scheidegg and Alpiglen because only they could see the sun flashing brilliantly back at them, reflected from the gleaming plate of ice covering the traverse at the foot of the Waterfall Chimney. Early that morning as Adi cautiously attempted a bridging step across the traverse the face lay in shadows and the watchers could not see the deceptive glitter of the Silver Trench.

They watched as Adi stretched a foot far out to his left. His boot slipped suddenly and he withdrew his leg to regain his balance. Poised above such an immense fall, it is hard to understand why he did not reverse his movements to a point where he could get out his rope and use a self-belay. Perhaps he did not want to waste time? Maybe because it was just one small step he knew he only had to raise his courage and then all would be well. The defiant way to regain confidence would be to force yourself to confront the impasse that has stymied you. Perhaps Adi, already unnerved by the treacherous conditions, had reached just such an impasse. Backing off and resorting to the rope would be an admission of failure. It might open the floodgates of fears that could quickly wash away whatever self-belief remained to him. He was being watched by an attentive, expectant audience. Perhaps he felt he couldn’t back down; just one long stride and he might regain his poise. It was a time to be brave: it was what he lived for.

He stretched his boot out once again, a jerky, tense movement, and again returned warily to his stance. Then he worked on the foothold with his ice axe. His movements reflected the actions of a tired and nervous man.

They saw him make another agonising attempt. Nothing was different from his previous strides but perhaps this time he managed to raise sufficient courage to transfer his weight to the glassy foothold. At twelve minutes past eight in the morning Adi risked the step. Heart pounding and adrenalin coursing through his body, he weighted the hold momentarily and then fell silently from the Silver Trench. His body flew from the Ramp and hardly struck the face during its fall of 4000 feet.

I too have paused many times at a particularly tricky move, hesitated as I tried to bolster my courage, and then stepped up or reached a tiny handhold at full stretch and breathed a sigh of relief. It is the essence of climbing. For an endless moment everything is concentrated on the outcome of one shift in body weight, one calculated decision to move, upon which the outcome of the entire climb – if not your life – is dependent. For an instant you are intensely alive. Good memories of climbs are as much about these brilliantly intense experiences, milliseconds of movement, confrontations with infinity, breath held until you have won through. I glanced up at the face thinking of Adi’s fateful step. Sometimes we lose.

The train rattled to a halt at the Kleine Scheidegg station and the air compressors hissed as the doors swung open. Most of Tokyo seemed to disembark onto the platform and rushed after a chattering tour guide holding aloft a pink umbrella as a marker point.

‘Where do they all come from?’ Ray said, as he watched the Japanese tourists perform a pincer movement around a St Bernard dog and fire off fusillades of well-aimed camera shots. The dog looked bored, lay down and began to lick his genitals. The tour guide raised her pink umbrella, barked a sharp Japanese order, and her entourage dutifully streamed off behind her in the direction of the hotel. I saw Simon and the camera crew take up defensive positions around the camera tripod.

‘God knows,’ I sighed and then turned to Hanspeter.

‘Do we go straight up to the Eiger Gletscher station now?’ Ray asked, like a condemned man hoping the scaffold had collapsed.

‘First I must clear it with the station master and then talk to Simon about the helicopter, but don’t worry, we shall still catch the first train up.’

‘Great, wonderful.’ He heaved his rucksack onto his shoulder.

We wandered up towards the group huddled around the camera. Everyone seemed to be in high spirits. Simon Wells grinned broadly and gave us the news that the team were already on the move heading up the Ramp. Hanspeter had a hurried conversation with Simon and then it was time to go. We shook hands all round and waved farewell as they shouted encouragement and we followed Hanspeter back towards the platform. I would rather have gone straight up onto the face without meeting anyone. I hate farewells.

As the train climbed up past the Eiger Gletscher station with a full complement of Japanese tourists aboard the lights in the two carriages flickered on as we drove into the guts of the mountain. I watched the morning light fade to a pin-prick dot and then disappear as the tunnel entrance receded behind the train.

I glanced at Ray, who was looking serious. I felt edgy and suppressed the urge to laugh. I aimed my video camcorder at the carriage full of faces who all began smiling back at me. Obviously I was learning their language. I panned across and filmed Ray as the train hissed to a stop and the side door opened.

‘Come on,’ Hanspeter called as he jumped down onto the tracks. ‘Come round the front of the train. You’ll see the Stollenloch door on the left.’

I switched the camcorder off and hefted my rucksack out of the door, following clumsily into the darkness of the tunnel. Walking around the front of the train I waved my thanks to the driver who smiled and held up a thumb in encouragement. A short corridor had been carved into the side of the tunnel and we clambered up a slight rocky incline towards where a weathered wooden doorway blocked further progress. On the left of the corridor I was astounded to see a fluorescent green neon advertising display that I had no time to read.