Heinrich Harrer - The White Spider

But was the duty really worth while? Was it really a duty? And, if it was, dared I, could I perform it? I kept on remembering that question: “a book about the Eiger? Whatever for?” I am not usually the kind of person to dither about a selected target, or about a route, once I have recognised it as the right one. To spur me on, I had all the mass of writings and photographs, the notebooks, the letters, much of the material already sorted and arranged under the individual attempts on and ascents of the Face. But those misgivings aroused by a thoughtless remark were a poor source of driving power to start me on my work.

Then, one day, my old friend Kurt Maix called on me. In Austria there is no need to introduce Kurt. In his own country everyone who has anything to do with mountains or mountaineering knows him. His ability to describe things graphically has enabled him to interest laymen and those who know nothing of mountains in Alpine affairs, and to tell the devoted readers he has won for himself in this way everything he wants to, and everything he knows how to, about climbing and climbers. And that means plenty. For not only was he in his day a pretty sporting climber; but he continues to take a lively, indeed a passionate, interest in everything to do with mountains and mountaineers. He is no hack-writer; every report on a climb, an expedition, a successful ascent, or an accident is a living experience for him. And though Maix is a journalist and writes by profession, he has never renounced his role as the mountaineer he remains at heart.

I was delighted to see Kurt again, but it was high time I were getting on with my book. After our first joyous greetings, I said to him: “I’m sorry I haven’t much time for you. I’m up to my neck in work.”

“So I hear,” said Kurt. “They tell me you are writing a book about your African trip and Ruwenzori.”

“No, not about Ruwenzori,” I confessed.

“Then what is it about?”

I hesitated a little. Perhaps I was afraid of another answer like the one which had made me so angry a few days ago. Then I blurted out:” About the North Face of the Eiger.”

Kurt looked surprised for a moment; then he said, with obvious delight: “But that’s grand news!”

Still a little dubious, I asked him: “What’s grand about it?”

“Why, that you’re the one who’s going to write the book about the Eiger. Not only because you were one of the party which made the first ascent. But because a book of yours will have more effect on our youngsters than a thousand warnings from elsewhere. They’ll believe you. ”

“Certainly, there will have to be warnings,” I said.

Kurt shook his head vigorously.” No,” he said,” I don’t mean that you will warn them in the ordinary sense. You won’t raise a minatory finger, with a superior smile. All you will need to do is to present the Face as it actually is. Its history is more than a record of mountaineering disasters and successes. It is a history of human development and human tragedies. Someone had to write this book about the Eiger some time. I would have done it myself, if—”

“If what?”

“If I were properly qualified to do it. But this is a book which can only be written by someone with personal experience of the Face. General mountaineering knowledge, imagination, reconstructions and a study of the sources, all these aren’t sufficient here.”

I remembered a broadcast I had heard, the previous year. Fischer-Karwin, the Austrian Radio’s star interviewer, had been asking Kurt Maix for his views about the mountaineering accidents of the summer of 1957. Kurt had answered: “I refuse to lump the tragedies on the Eiger Wall together with other accidents which resulted from carelessness or insufficient experience. Anyone who makes headway on the North Face of the Eiger and survives there for several days has achieved and overcome so much—whatever mistakes he may have committed—that his performance is well above the comprehension of the average climber.”

And now here was Kurt, thrilled at my determination to write the book. His enthusiasm was infectious and convincing. Had I really been annoyed a few days ago by a thoughtless remark? I had already forgotten about it. Suddenly, I saw a strange picture before my eyes. I was standing at the bottom of a high and difficult mountain face, intending to climb it solo. Then I was joined by another solitary climber who, too, stood looking up the face, just as I had stood, searching, studying, assessing. An unexpected meeting, a brief word of greeting, and a decision was born to climb the face as a pair.

Following a spontaneous impulse, I asked Kurt: “Will you help me with the book? There is so much basic material that it needs continual revision and sifting. Thoughts and questions keep on cropping up which call for definite answers. It is often very hard to provide the right answer oneself. Could you stay for a few days?”

Kurt stayed for many days. We worked like demons, from morning till night. We wallowed in reports and statements, made notes, headings, began to write things down, mostly each working on his own. But we both looked forward to the evenings, when we joined up again and shared the experiences and fresh knowledge the day had brought. Those evenings frequently extended far into the night, occupied by long conversations which always seemed too short. Everything always revolved about the North Face of the Eiger. Yet it was a focus from which our thoughts could range outwards in all directions. And from some small occurrence on the Face we often travelled directly to life’s most serious problems. Memories which I had long since thought deeply overlaid came vividly to life again. A great deal of what was eventually set down and developed in the book arose out of our nightly talks. They were good days, those, with Kurt as my companion, and both of us spiritually in the shadow of the Eiger’s Face.

I have always been disappointed when climbers who lead a first ascent on a difficult climb fail to acknowledge the support of the second man on the rope. One loses nothing by reporting that the rope moved through the safeguarding hands of one’s partner while one was mastering an overhang. And now that the book about the North Face of the Eiger is finished, I would like to shake hands with Kurt Maix, just as I would on reaching a summit.

But there are many others besides Kurt whom I must thank for their share in the completion of this book. Their role has been that of the porters and team-mates on an expedition, who pitch camps and shuttle loads, so that the assault party can push on up to the top. The late Othmar Gurtner, that great Swiss mountaineer, author and editor, provided me, out of his rich store of knowledge, with endless facts, basic sources and special Eiger-documentation. How grateful I was for my acquaintance with Guido Tonella, who wields his pen for truth and justice as bravely as any Cavalier of old his sword. How gratefully I recognised in my correspondence with Lionel Terray and Gaston Rébuffat that brotherly comradeship which unites all climbers. And what thanks I owe to all the others who helped me, by their letters and reports, in my labours of compiling this book. Anderl Heckmair, Erich Vanis, Erich Waschak, Sepp Jöchler, Karl Blach, Sepp Larch, Jean Fuchs, Karl Gramminger, Alfred Hellepart…. Technical considerations alone prevent my naming all the others to whom my thanks are due. And then there are the dead, whose memories, whose achievements and whose letters survive as living witnesses of strong and good men: Fritz Kasparek, Ludwig Vörg, Hans Schlunegger, Karl Reiss, Jürgen Wellenkamp, Hermann Buhl and Louis Lachenal.

As I write these lines, the summer of 1958 has begun. It is five years since the last party succeeded in climbing the North Face of the Eiger—the twelfth to reach the top safe and sound. So far there has been no thirteenth. I know that within the next few weeks some keen young climbers will be trying to break the barrier of Tragedy which seems to hang over the thirteenth climb of the Face. They are continually in my thoughts. 1