A Traverse of the Eiger and the Monch
by R. Gowing
In the long evenings of the summer term, talking together after a lecture by a visiting climber, or sipping pints at P.Y.G. after a day on the Three Cliffs, climbers’ thoughts turn to their plans and ambitions for the coming season in the high Alps. It was on such an evening that Nigel Rogers put forward his scheme for a sky-line traverse of the great northern wall of the Bernese Ober-land. After suitable training we would traverse the Eiger by the Mitteleggi ridge, bivouac on the Eigerjoch and traverse the Monch to the Jungfraujoch. From there we would climb the Jungfrau by its magnificent north-east ridge, and descend the Aletsch Glacier to the Rhone valley.
After many pints our plans were completed, also the party by the inclusion of Geoff Baldwin; we walked and climbed, and walked again on the Welsh hills, we attempted the Wetterhorn and succeeded on the Schreckhorn; finally we posted out camping gear to Sion to be picked up after the traverse and sent a large box of food up on the railway to the Jungfraujoch.
Now the day had come, rain was falling in the streets of Grindelwald, and the mountain wall was covered with cloud as we boarded the train that was to take us on the first leg of our journey. The train clanked down through the village, past the bathing pool, down to Grand station in the valley bottom, then went winding up among the chalets towards the Kleine Scheidegg. Below the clouds we could feel, but not see, the vast wall of the Eiger rising above us. A few chalets, a desolate moor and we were at the Kleine Scheidegg where we hurriedly bought our tickets and dashed through the rain to the Jungfraubahn.
There were few people in the train—a Swiss climber, and an American magnate with Mom and Junior. Up we went through the avalanche shelters to the Eigergletscher station, where the Swiss climber left us. Then the tram plunged into the heart of the mountain, past gloomy portals opening on to the north face, until at last it came to a stop: Station Eismeer. We got off and watched the train disappear into a pinprick of light, then went into the station hall: a large window looked out on to a jumble of glacier, and cloud-rent peaks ; we shuddered and sat down to our tea.
When all was ready we set off, groping down a cold, damp tunnel until we emerged on to the glacier. ” Achtung, Steinschlag vom Eiger ” said the guide book, so we moved well out on to the glacier away from the south face. Making our way between the slabs of the Eiger and the edge of the glacier shelf, we headed for the buttress below the hut perched up on the ridge. A thump, and Rogers had discovered a crevasse—in up to his knee; he had wrenched it but luckily was able to carry on. In gently falling rain we started up the rock buttress. The climbing was not difficult but it was slaty limestone with no belays; as we mounted higher we became increasingly aware of the sweep of slabs below us and of our insecurity. Dark was falling and we were relieved when the slope eased off and we arrived at the little hut, perched high on the Mitteleggi ridge. Four Frenchmen were there; we had a quick meal, filled the pans with snow and went to bed.
The morning dawned overcast and snowing; after poking our noses outside we retired to bed. The Frenchmen went down, leaving us to a pleasant restful day in the hut. Through breaks in the clouds we could look straight down on Grindelwald; later it cleared enough for us to see the cirque of peaks surrounding the lower Grindelwald glacier, while to the east the ridge rose towering into the clouds. We spent the day lying on the bunk reading the hut-book. Many parties had come up to the hut only to go down again in the face of the weather. Our experience of the ascent to the hut made us reluctant to go down again over the treacherous slabs, specially since they were thinly coated with fresh snow.
Next morning at 3.30 a.m. it was overcast and doubtful; by 5 o’clock it had cleared and looked promising so we breakfasted and at 6.30 we were off. The ridge was horizontal and easy to begin with, and we soon reached the first obstacle, a nick some 20 feet deep. We climbed gingerly down into it, testing every hold on the slaty limestone as we went. From the nick rose the first fixed rope. Rogers led off, trying as much as possible to climb on his feet, using the rope as a steadying handhold. In places the holds became sparse, so we had to swarm up with feet pressed against the rock; this was strenuous and the tendency to
hurry, making full use of the ropes, made tiring work of it.
This short ascent led to another horizontal section from which we climbed gradually upwards in a stepwise fashion, with the stout ropes to help us on the difficult sections. There was some cloud about, but not enough to diminish the impressions of our aerial highway. To our left the slabs plunged down to the Kallifirn and the jumble of the Fieschergletscher backed by the rugged peaks of the Schreckhorn and Fiescherhorner. On our right ice slopes and cliffs dropped down to Grindelwald, with the valleys and foothills stretching away into the distance.
At last we reached the gendarme at the foot of the final bastion, which marked the furthest point of early attempts; it was not until artificial aids were used that it was finally climbed. Soon after the first ascent the guides draped the ridge with fixed ropes so that the climbing, though strenuous and exposed presents little technical difficulty. We climbed down the fixed ropes into the gap and started up the bastion. There was much snow about and the rope was icy in places; at one point it was buried under snow and we had a delicate traverse above the north face, but we finally reached the top of the rock and left the ropes behind.
We now had to cope with soft snow and cornices, at times creeping beloAv the cornice on loose rocks above the snow face, at times on the crest of the snow ridge, thus rope-length by rope-length we worked our way to the summit, a mere scoop in the snow. A stack of gear bore silent witness to the tragedies and triumph of the rescue attempt on the Eigerwand two years before, and a pole with a flag ” Bally Schuhen ” showed that not even on the high summits is there any escape from commercialism.
We rested and had a quick meal. It was already 3.15 p.m. and we had given up the idea of continuing over the Monch to the Jungfraujoch, but hoped to make the Bergli hut. We were 6½ hours guide-book time from this and would have to hurry to reach it before dark. We set off down the south ridge, over mixed snow and easy rock, but had not gone far before an Eiger storm brewed up and we were surrounded be dense cloud, hail and lightning. This slowed us down and as we groped our way down the ridge our prospects of a night under shelter looked remote. However, the storm soon passed and, leaving the southwest ridge away on the right, we abseiled down a chimney on to the snow-slope which curves down towards the Eiger glacier.
The snow was in a tricky state as we made our way slowly down towards the northern Eigerjoch.
It was 7.30 p.m. when we reached the Eigerjoch and, since it would take us at least four hours to reach the Bergli, we resolved to. carry on along the ridge until we found a suitable bivouac site. What a delight it was to reach the first rocks and to grasp firm gneiss after the loose slaty limestone of the Eiger. We scrambled over and round rock outcrops by airy snow aretes. The darkness gathered round us, but eventually we found a shelf on one of the outcrops where we could spend the night in safety.
Rogers’ original skyline traverse plan had included the possibility of a bivouac in this region, so we were quite prepared. We put ourselves on short belays, put on all our spare clothing, removed our boots and put feet and boots into our rucksacks and put ourselves into 7 ft. by 3 ft. stout polythene bags. With the rope coiled underneath to soften our stony seats we were tolerably comfortable and so, after a bite, we settled down for the night.
It was clear and we looked out over the dark valley of Lauter-brunnen; above us, gleaming in the starlight, rose the snowy Monch. It must have been very cold, but we were quite snug in our polythene bags and we slept a little before the sky began to lighten. Then followed what is probably the worst part of a bivouac—the bitter cold of the night as it fights its rearguard action against the approaching day. At last it lightened; we stretched, shook the condensation out of our bags, packed up and had breakfast. Within a few hours we should be at the snug haven of the Jungfraujoch—a bit of ridge and a couple of easy snow cols and we’d be there.
But—it was a perfect morning, and there in front of us was the Monch, beckoning us on. We were well placed to traverse it; we should be up the steep snow arete before the sun had softened it, and should still reach the Jungfraujoch by midday. We set off, scrambling over more rock outcrops till finally a gentle undulating snow arete led us to the foot of the Monch. The north-east ridge rose before us, bounded on the left by the snowy north-east flank, on the right by the north face, which plunges down to the Eiger glacier four thousand feet below.
After Rogers’ fine lead over the Eiger I led up the ridge. The bergschrund gave little trouble and we climbed up keeping
fairly well to the crest of the ridge. In places rock outcropped on the ridge; this was mostly a help, and at other times we used the rocks bounding the snow on the north face. The upper part was a fine steep snow arete where steps needed careful kicking and I handed over to Rogers’ superior icemanship. After some exhilarating climbing, we reached the broad flat summit at 10.15.
After a quick meal in company with another party who had come up a different way, Rogers led off down the south-west ridge. The going was easy at first—good snow, then straightforward rocks mingled with snow. We looked down to the Jungfraujoch, its nearby slopes dotted with people, up at the Jung-frau, with its North-East Ridge rearing, and down to the right at the Guggi glacier far below. The ridge gave good scrambhng without much difficulty, but once again the dark clouds gathered, the hail started and we heard the sickening buzzing sound with that feeling of utter helplessness in the face of the electric storm. Of course this had to hit us just as we were negotiating the tricky part of the descent, a thirty foot slab. Rogers and Baldwin fought their way down it in the storm but when my turn came it had passed and one slab was already drying out.
We scrambled down the remaining rocks and out on the snowfields, A final trudge through soft soupy snow brought us to the beaten track, which we followed to an entrance into the rock; a hundred yards of tunnel led us to the warm, welcoming haven of the Jungfraujoch.