Conquistadors of the Useless

by Roberts, David, Terray, Lionel, Sutton, Geoffrey

  Since Hellepart had seen no trace of any other party, it seemed that the Germans must have fallen off. Whatever had occurred, somebody else now had to go down as far as the foot of the Spider to look for them and to help Longhi. Friedli and Gramminger asked me if I was still willing to do this, and I accepted at once.

  The cloud ceiling, which had stayed high all morning, was now descending, and I put on all my clothes in case of bad weather. Somebody wedged a crash-helmet on my head to protect me from falling stones, and the walky-talky was strapped on my chest. Then the indefatigable Friedli gave me a bit of advice on the gentle art of giving injections and I was off down the snow slope, accompanied by the encouragements of my friends. At the point where the angle changed to the vertical I could see grooves worn nearly an inch deep in the bare limestone by the action of the cable. Here there was a halt of several minutes while a new length of cable was bolted on, then the descent started again, down the same gullies and chimneys I had climbed with the energy of desperation ten years before.

  I had never expected to see the place again, but nothing seemed to have changed. Snow and verglas coated the outward-sloping holds in just the same sort of way, and menacing clouds were shrouding the summit. As snowflakes began to drift past I relived those moments with amazing intensity. Even Lachenal’s chaff came back to me, and I could see him emerging from a chimney, supple as a cat, his eyes shining with malicious pleasure as he called out:

  ‘Well, Mr Guide, did you find it an interesting climb?’

  All of a sudden the cable stopped. I called the summit to find out what was happening but got no reply – instead, there was a conversation in German between the summit and Kleine Scheidegg. Finally the summit called me:

  ‘Hallo Terray, hallo Terray. Are you receiving me? Over.’

  I replied:

  ‘Hallo, summit. Receiving you loud and clear. Why have you stopped me here? Are you receiving me? Over.’

  They didn’t seem to be able to hear me. There were calls in German and in French, with long silences in between. The thing seemed to be going on indefinitely. In my bosun’s chair I yoyoed quite comfortably at the end of the line, but time began to weigh rather heavily. For something to do I pendulumed to the left in order to have a look at the chimney where I had got cramp bridging in 1947, and even succeeded in spotting the crack where the final piton was hammered in. After a few swings back and forth, however, I noticed that the cable was grinding heavily against the rock, and suddenly its quarter-inch diameter began to seem rather thin.

  Snowflakes continued to waver past, and occasionally a small slide from the slopes above would envelope me in its cloud. Finally I heard a voice:

  ‘Hallo Terray, hallo Terray. This is Scheidegg. Are you receiving me? Over.’

  In the course of the long conversation which followed I gathered that the radio on the summit was still transmitting perfectly but that it could no longer receive. Occasionally vibrations came down the cable, or I would be lowered or hoisted a few inches. To pass the time away I shouted to a party which could be seen on the north-west arête, but in reply came cries from the depths below me. It was Longhi, still hoping against hope.

  The chances of saving him were getting less and less with every minute that went by. Soon it would be four o’clock, and the weather had now definitely broken. It was impracticable to do anything more that afternoon, in any case. If conditions got really bad it would be not only unreasonable but humanly impossible to put enough men on the Spider to carry Longhi across the thousand feet from his present ledge to a point below the winch, and then get them all up again. Even in fine weather such an operation would take a whole day at least. We had enough good climbers to make the thing possible, and I felt sure that, given a sporting chance with the weather, several of us would be willing to spend several days on the face to save Longhi from the death he had so courageously resisted. But in a storm it would be another matter; with the best will in the world we should be powerless. Presently the cable tightened and I began to walk back up the face. Friedli had decided that to descend farther without either visibility or radio contact would be too dangerous, and was hauling me back again. Soon Tom was greeting me on the ridge.

  It was now after four o’clock, and I was surprised to see that Corti was still there. Despite the care he had received he seemed much more subdued than at the moment of his arrival, and it was obvious that if possible he should be spared the ordeal of a ninth bivouac. Still excited from my abortive adventure and somewhat exasperated at this display of Germanic ponderousness, I proceeded to shake everybody up in no uncertain terms. Gramminger, Friedli and I drew up a plan of campaign. Friedli’s Swiss team was to remain where it was, ready to start operations very early if conditions justified the attempt. The rest of the party was to get Corti down the same evening and come back up at dawn, weather permitting.

  A few minutes later Corti was strapped on my back. At the top of the north-west arête we rolled him in sleeping bags, then lashed him to a special stretcher. The first part of the descent was awkward. The cables had remained on the summit, and the stretcher had to be lowered on a couple of two-hundred-foot ropes. Each time they ran out we planted new pitons and started again. Unfortunately the going consisted of outward-sloping ledges of rotten limestone plastered with ice, on which lay a blanket of crumbly snow. Worse still, the lie of the land forced us to traverse diagonally rightwards rather than go straight down. It didn’t look in the least spectacular, but in fact it was really delicate and called for great experience in the art of rope management. In order to make any speed on such ground every member of the party would have had to be completely at ease, which was far from being the case. Most of them were all gripped-up and could only move with extreme care for all their good will. Some of them were in fact more of a hindrance than a help, and I half dreaded another accident. One Polish party did in fact slip, and were only saved thanks to Tom’s quick reactions.

  After a few pitches the five or six best climbers took charge of the whole operation, and from then on we did succeed in establishing a certain method. As we got lower the falling snow became mixed with rain, so that before long we were all soaked to the skin. Just before nightfall Friedli’s team caught up with us. After helping for a short time they carried on down. They had rightly thought that after another bivouac in such conditions they would not be in a fit state to do anything very effective the next morning, so they had left their gear in position and gone down to sleep at Eigergletscher. If the weather changed during the night the idea was to go up early with fresh reinforcements. It grew darker and darker. The wind blew with increasing violence, whirling the snow up into our faces and blinding us. To have gone on any longer would have been to run the risk of an almost certain accident.

  Gramminger and I, who had directed the whole descent between us, decided to stop at the first half-reasonable site. We were all worn out from two days and a night of hard work, low temperatures and high wind, and this second bivouac was extremely trying. None of us had eaten much for a long time, and all were sodden. The majority were short of bivouac kit into the bargain. After we had anchored Corti to a vaguely level section of ridge I found myself all alone beside him, exposed to the full force of the gale. All the others, of whom Tom had been the last to leave, had taken shelter where they could find it. After an hour or so Corti dozed off and I crept away to look for some shelter of my own, but after less than half an hour curled up in a little hollow I heard him cry out heart-rendingly. Waking alone on the ridge amid the hurly-burly of the storm, no doubt he thought himself abandoned. I went back and gave him something to drink, then, frozen to the marrow, returned to my wretched shelter. No sooner had I got there than more cries called me back to the stretcher, and so it continued.

  At daybreak several more parties were seen climbing towards us. By the time they reached us we were ready to start, and the lowering began again at once. The newcomers were mostly elderly
guides. Unfortunately none of them had any crampons and consequently they were not really much use, with the exception of one whose amazing agility made up for his lack of equipment and even for his grumpy nature. The snowed-up ledges began to give place to a series of vertical and overhanging walls, a formation which could hardly have been more awkward for the diagonal lowering of a loaded stretcher. It was particularly tough on the rescuer harnessed to the stretcher as its guide, but fortunately the excellent guide Hans Schlunegger soon arrived and performed this task to perfection. Next we met a likeable party from Chateau d’Oex, one of whom was the well-known climber Betty Favre. They had brought thermos flasks of hot drinks with them which gave us renewed strength. Soon we were literally surrounded with helpers from all over the place, and at last Friedli and his group arrived and took turns on the rope, thereby speeding our progress considerably. In spite of this it was three o’clock in the afternoon before we finally got to Eigergletscher.

  A hysterical crowd of onlookers, reporters and photographers was waiting at the foot of the glacier and around the station, a portent of less disinterested struggles to come. The whole affair provoked violent polemics in Switzerland, German and Italy. Some folk who had taken good care to keep away from the action indulged in criticism of the rescue’s organisation, and even of its having taken place at all. Of course no hurriedly improvised action can ever be perfect. The fact remained that mountaineers of many nations had combined together in a wave of spontaneous human feeling to save the life of a particularly foolish colleague, in spite of hopeless-looking conditions. It had been a magnificent example of what can be accomplished by courage, enthusiasm and willpower, and if only for this reason it was a great achievement. The rest is nothing but dirty gossip.

  1. Translator’s note. There are batteries of powerful telescopes at Kleine Scheidegg.[back]

  2. Translator’s note. This long traverse leading to the Spider is often called ‘the Traverse of the Gods’.[back]

  3. Translator’s note. Pitons are classified by length and thickness: among them are ‘ace of hearts’, the tiniest of all; ‘extra plat’, the next category; normal blade pegs of various types; and U-pegs with a thick channel-sectioned blade. Ice pegs are much longer.[back]

  4. Translator’s note. ‘Thrutch’ is a climbing word denoting awkward progress.[back]

  – Chapter Six –

  Guide on the Great Climbs

  The second ascent of the north face of the Eiger was the apogee of my Alpine career. Subsequently I gave less time to my own amateur climbing and devoted myself to professional activities which I sought to practise in as many ranges and on the most difficult climbs possible. It was not until later that I was lucky enough to become active as an amateur once more, but this time it was in the course of eight expeditions to the Andes and Himalayas.[1] In a lesser degree Lachenal followed the same course.

  There is perhaps something a bit larger than life about mountaineering at times, a quality engendered by its dangerous and sometimes heroic character, but for all that it in no way escapes from the laws of sport or of nature. A naturally gifted man who frequents mountains from boyhood on, overcoming innumerable obstacles and doing hundreds of climbs, gradually becomes surer-footed and acquires stronger fingers, steadier nerves, more stamina and a more refined technique. Thus he may eventually reach such a degree of mastery that even on ascents of extreme difficulty he has plenty in reserve and runs no great risks. The mountains, once so full of mystery and traps for the unwary, become friendly and familiar, and faces which once demanded every ounce of coinage and energy he possessed seem no more than healthy exercise. I ran more risks and had more trouble in climbing the Aiguille Verte for the first time by the ordinary way than I did later on its Nant Blanc face. In between I had been up the mountain nine times (among innumerable ascents of other peaks) by six different routes. In climbing as in any other sport miracles are rare. Talent, experience, technique, and training are the keys to success.

  Once a skier has achieved mastery of technique he no longer sticks to nursery slopes; he would soon get bored if he did. In the same way, each advance in a climber’s ability leads him to try a more difficult ascent, and so he progresses. To keep up his enthusiasm he must seek new problems, and there’s the rub. A skier can always find steeper and rougher slopes, an athlete can always try to run faster or jump higher, but a mountaineer can only climb the peaks and faces which exist.

  After the Walker we had begun to wonder if we had not attained a level of fitness, morale and technique such that the Alps no longer afforded us the opportunities we sought for self-surpassment. The Eigerwand, done in bad weather and bad conditions, more or less clinched the matter.

  Now that we had climbed the highest and hardest faces in the Alps we had nothing left to hope for. I remember writing somewhere or other: ‘In order to renew the adventure the mountain must rise to the measure of its adversaries’. Thenceforward the mountains of Europe could only provide us with a sporting form of tourism or with simple trials of technical virtuosity. For those of us whose ambitions went beyond aesthetic appreciation or mere gymnastics, the only way out of this impasse seemed to be to change the rules of the game, either by climbing the hardest faces solo or by doing them in winter. Obviously we would rather have measured ourselves against the highest mountains in the world, which will always provide game even for the hardiest, but how were we to get to them without money?

  Some readers may be provoked to remark that, although we had repeated the hardest climbs done up till then in the high western Alps, a number of big routes such as the west face and south-west pillar of the Dru were still awaiting their first ascents, and that moreover we hadn’t climbed a single one of the great Dolomite faces. As everyone knows, the last-named range contains the longest and hardest crags ever scaled by man. Contrary to what I have said, then, these readers may conclude that even after the Walker and the Eiger there remained plenty in the Alps to keep us busy, and up to a point they would be right. But, as I have already had occasion to remark, mountaineering includes a number of different specialities. Greater mountaineering is one of these, extreme rock climbing is another. Very few people feel an equal enthusiasm for them, and fewer still manage to shine at both, since their techniques differ widely.

  I remember two very famous Dolomite specialists being so ill at ease on the way down the Eiger after the rescue that my friend Tom could literally run circles round them. I could also cite the instance of two other ‘sestogradists’ who achieved the almost incredible distinction, after a slightly late start, of bivouacking on the easy Dent du Géant. Again, there was the case of an illustrious party from the eastern Alps who took three days to do the Walker in normal conditions; to say nothing of the unbelievable slowness of the German-Italian party on the Eiger, who were all, be it noted, first-rate rock climbers. One of them was indeed considered to be rather a phenomenon, and held speed records for a number of rock climbs. But if it is true that the majority of climbers from the Dolomites are not at home on the ice, mixed ground, or even the rock of the high western Alps, the same applies equally to the ‘greater mountaineers’ when they get on to the loose, overhanging limestone of the eastern Alps.

  Lachenal and I were determined ‘occidentalists’. Climbing to us meant summits and faces where there was snow and ice as well as rock. For us this fairyland of silver glaciers and shining snow had incomparable charms, and by comparison faces of pure rock seemed painfully monotonous both aesthetically and technically. Neither of us had ever been much attracted by the lower ranges, and we didn’t really think of them as proper mountains. ‘Dolomitism’ seemed different in nature to mountaineering. It wasn’t that we were unable to climb rocks, as we had shown on the Walker – Lachenal was in fact quite exceptional on delicate ground – so much as that mixed or even pure ice climbs inspired us more, particularly in cases where rock climbing meant a lot of artificial work, which we detested.

  Now a goo
d many laymen and even climbers may imagine that this technique in which, as everybody knows, one progresses by pulling up from one piton to the next, is really not very difficult. I have quite often heard it said:

  ‘There’s not really much to it. It’s just a question of banging in the pegs and then stepping up on little ladders.’

  This, however, is a gross over-simplification. Except on some all too rare occasions, artificial climbing calls for considerable strength, intelligence and courage. It is extremely strenuous to spend hours and even days on an overhanging face, swinging around on stirrups, and constantly hammering, in the most uncomfortable positions. Getting the pegs to hold in all sorts of inconvenient cracklets and arranging the ropes and karabiners so that they don’t jam is a work of art in itself, and to climb faces of over two thousand feet in this way, at a speed of a hundred or even sometimes a hundred and twenty feet an hour, demands more than ordinary willpower and perseverance. In positions where the rock is friable and the exposure very great only the most genuine courage enables men to trust themselves to a long series of insecure metal spikes which might ‘unzip’ at any moment. I know of nothing which gives a greater sensation of insecurity.