Page 31 - 2007/08 AMA Winter
P. 31
OKTOBERfEST
By Stu McDonald
I’d picked up Kath and Pete but we were making good much of a crack line. A verti
from Geneva Airport the day progress upwards. As we before and we’d driven climbed upwards past the
cal face marked by the cram pon scratches of over 70 years of alpinism. A crack line it was not, but bloody dif ficult it was I
the lead, and we moved quickly up a ramp line to the start of the Hinterstoisser Traverse. An in-situ rope marked the route across the steep wall, and Pete was soon across. A perfect layer of neve clung to the wall and provided great placements for axes and crampons. As I climbed onto a small ledge I realised we were at the Swallows Nest Bivouac. It was only 4.30 in the afternoon and we had finished climbing for the day already. The ledges needed some excava tion but pretty quickly we had two good platforms for the night. As the sun slowly set on the horizon the mountains
were bathed in a red glow.
\A/e> xAioro n11 Inof in /-\iir
straight there. The forecast was good for three days only. The first train left at 7.10 in the morning and we were now clanking and grinding our way uphill. It was dark, but dawn was close. As the train slow ly made its way up the moun tainside the first rays of light appeared over the horizon. There above us loomed our
objective. It was dark, steep and foreboding. The scale was hard to judge, but I knew it was massive, with a vertical rise of 1800m from the bot tom of the face to the top. With vast traverses back and forward across the face the route would involve over 3000m of climbing. This was what I’d been waiting for. This was my dream climb. This was the North Face of the Eiger.
About half an hour after get ting off the train we were at the bottom of the face. It was nine in the morning. It was warm, the sky was clear and there was no wind. It was perfect.
Pete took the lead with myself and Kath following on the same rope. Short steep sec tions of rock were inter spersed with bands of scree that seemed to
defy gravity. The route wasn’t always obvious,
Shattered Pillar a team was
visible ahead. They’d come
out of the Gallery Window and
hence were missing out the
initial section of the route. I Pete was doing a good job in could see why they’d done
that, but somehow it didn’t seem right. This was a route on every aspiring alpinist’s hit-list, and we wanted to do it in as traditional a way as we could.
As we passed the gallery win dow things got icy. There were patches of verglace on the rocks and a reasonable amount of snow. After don ning crampons we headed onwards, climbing corners and following natural weak nesses. A wild traverse led to the bottom of the Difficult Crack. Some say this is the crux of the route, and I could see why. You would think that the name said it all, but
it was not really
h a d n ’t
quite regis
tered where
we were. As I
dozed on my ledge I
planned for the next morning when it would be my turn to lead.
The alarm was quickly turned off and in no time my stove was bubbling away. Mint tea was followed by cappuccino for a caffeine hit. After that I was gearing up and packing my things into my ‘sack.
“When it comes tight, just
start climbing” I shouted as I HioonnciQrorl
