The Eiger Mordwand

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Toker Villain

Big Wall climber

Toquerville, Utah

Topic Author's Reply - Aug 16, 2011 - 03:46pm PT

Michael Lecky,
you have a pied d'elephant?

You know how Patey defined that?

steve shea

climber

Aug 16, 2011 - 03:58pm PT

The dead guy we found frozen into the ramp icefield had a canvas type coat, one dachstein mitt, a bluet globetrotter stove and an elephant's foot.

Toker Villain

Big Wall climber

Toquerville, Utah

Topic Author's Reply - Aug 16, 2011 - 04:00pm PT

A boot made for a climber who has lost his toes to frostbite??

TomCochrane

Trad climber

Santa Cruz Mountains and Monterey Bay

Aug 16, 2011 - 04:01pm PT

'Um die Eiger Nordwand' Kasparek/Harrer, Copyright 1938, has dozens of great pictures from 'BITD'; just in case anyone is under the illusion that the sport was invented in California! I'll find time to scan and post.

'The White Spider' has always had a prominent place in my home; alongside Buhl's 'Lonely Challenge'; and Lionel Terray's 'Conquistadors of the Useless'

steve shea

climber

Aug 16, 2011 - 04:08pm PT

Ron, he lost more than his toes...

Marlow

Sport climber

OSLO

Aug 16, 2011 - 04:21pm PT

The last and very well researched book on the Eiger is Rainer Rettner's "Eiger. Triumphe und Tragödien 1932-1938" from 2008. A lot old pictures we have never seen before in addition to already known pictures.

Marlow

Sport climber

OSLO

Aug 17, 2011 - 04:47pm PT

A bit of Heckmair's story:

Anderl Heckmair was born on October 12 1906. His father, whose family owned a gardening business, was a master gardener for the City of Munich, but was killed aged 42 in the First World War. Unable to afford to bring up two boys, Anderl's mother sent her sons to an orphanage, where Heckmair's abiding memory was of hunger; the two stole boiled potatoes from pigs to supplement their diet of pearl barley soup. The summer of 1918 was spent with two nuns in Switzerland, and it was they who gave Heckmair his first taste of the mountains.

ulybaZZa

Trad climber

Bonn, Germany

Aug 17, 2011 - 08:11pm PT

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-dPjDYVKUY

ulybaZZa

Trad climber

Bonn, Germany

Aug 18, 2011 - 11:09am PT

Another nice story about Heckmair: In 1934, he took part as a reserve of the DSV team (Franz Fischer, Gustav "Gustl" Müller, Matthias Wörndle) in the legendary Trofeo Mezzalama ski mountaineering competition. Heckmair started one and a half hour after the teams as single runner and overtook all the competing teams.

Must have been quite embarrassing for the competitors :)

Reilly

Mountain climber

The Other Monrovia- CA

Aug 18, 2011 - 11:20am PT

I miss my pied, d'elephant, that is. I think some Rooskie got it.

The Eiger and Robson are the two things I'm most sorry to have not climbed.

TomCochrane

Trad climber

Santa Cruz Mountains and Monterey Bay

Aug 18, 2011 - 12:21pm PT

quick snapshots from 'Um die Eiger Nordwand' Kasparek/Harrer, Copyright 1938
deserving of professional reproduction...

i am struck by the similarities between the way the superhero climbers were treated in Germany in the 1930s and the way the Apollo astronauts were treated in the USA in the 1960s

-

squishy

Mountain climber

sacramento

Aug 18, 2011 - 01:34pm PT

wow, thanks for posting those!!

squishy

Mountain climber

sacramento

Aug 18, 2011 - 01:37pm PT

some pics from my recent trip there

Michael Lecky

Mountain climber

Harvard, MA

Aug 18, 2011 - 04:52pm PT

There was a bit of doggerel about alpine frostbite, perhaps from Tom Patey's "One Man's Mountains":

Ten frozen fingers, ten frozen toes
The memory lingers, but the digit goes.

Ulysses S. Grant wrote that war is progressive. So is climbing. Will Eiger north face become a tourist route, like Whitney east buttress or the Whitney-Gillman route on Cannon? You tell me. Knock yourselves out, kids. I love reading about what you're doing.