DAUNTLESS FOUR

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23145, 17 September 1938, Page 9 (Supplement)

DAUNTLESS FOUR

IN the darkness, in bitter cold, with a blizzard raging about the heads of the climbers, four young Germans fought their way up the "impossible" North Wall of the Eiger in the Bernese Oberland. Many have tried to climb this precipice of 3000 feet, which is the last step upward on tho north side of the 13,000 feet Eiger, and many have paid with their lives for the desperate risk they took. This slightly sloping face is scarred only with' ledges along which, from, ono to the other, the climbers must make their perilous way. Horrified Watchers Only two years ago a party of four attempted it, and was marooned on ono of tho ledges unable to go back or forward. There they remained helpless while horrified watchers in the valley below saw them fall one by one. Such a fate, threatened the four who, undeterred by tho fate of their predecessors, set out to attempt a climb which the Swiss authorities had forbidden because of its danger. The Dauntless Four were Herren Voerg and Heckmaier, of Munich, and Harrer and Kasparck, of Vienna. For three days and three nights they were on the exposed precipice in the shadow of death, but they succeeded. They left Grindelwald and Kleine Scheidegg by different routes and met above the second snowfall of the Eeigt at about 10,000 feet. The 3000 feet North Wall towered above them early in the morning, and they began at once to ascend.

Three-day Conquest

All the first day till late at night they could be seen through telescopes making slow progress, and jusb before darkness closed in on them were seen 011 a ledgo of this rock wall 12,000 feet up. Then; they must spend the night. During the night the weather changed for the worse. Flurries of snow to fall, and the watchers at Grindelwald and Kleine Scheidegg could not pick them out at all throughout/ the following day. A party of eight experienced guides set out for the Eiger Summit by the orthodox way, but having readied it could find no sign of the North Wall adventurers. What had happened? It was hard to believe they had survived, but they had; tliey struggled on. When only 1000 feet remained a heavy snowstorm overtook them, and for another night a blizzard raging about them threatened to tear them from their ledges. Thev clung to them with the courage of desperation, for they could not get down. Last Hope Either they must reach the summit or make an almost hopeless attempt to cross tho fresh snow sideways and reach a shelter hut 11,000 feet up. They said afterwardsgthat, feeling their; lives almost lost, they'decided that they, could not fare worse if they went upwards. ' ; • . They spent the third night in a cleft in the wall, and then, with frozen limbs and fingers, began their last stage ofl 500 feet up an ice channel. Bruised and half famished, they, accomplished it, and, fortune at last favouring the brave, they stood on the afternoon on the third day on the summit. The North Wall which, throughout the history of Alpine climbing had held out defiantly, was conquered at last: