Photo Gallery Mastering the 'Murderous Wall'
July 24, 2013 marks the 75th anniversary of the first successful climb to the top of the Eiger's north face. Although dangers persist on the legendary peak in the Swiss Alps, advances in equipment have turned this former graveyard of the ambitious into a playground for professionals. In 1999, Swiss climber Stephan Siegrist, shown here in Argentina, was part of a live television broadcast of the climbing of the Eiger's infamous north face. He has successfully climbed to its top -- some 1,800 meters (5,900 feet) up -- almost 30 times.
Austrain climber Heinrich Harrer was a member of the team of four that first got to the top on July 24, 1938 (shown here). The German term for the north face is Nordwand, or "north wall," and the climbers who have gone to their graves trying to climb it have given it the nickname Mordwand, or "murder(ous) wall."
Although the climb is still dangerous and challenging, advances in equipment have made it considerably easier than it once was. Even into the 1960s, people climbing the north face were still using traditional axes with long, wooden shafts to chop footholds into the ice, as displayed here by Siegrist. But their modern counterparts use ergonomically shaped axes with jagged teeth on the pick, a wide adze on the head and a spiked shaft, which together create an all-purpose tool that can almost effortlessly be driven into layers of ice of varying consistency.
Siegrist shows more old-school ice axes: The climber has a lot of respect for the climbers of old after ascending the Eiger using the same kind of equipment they used decades ago.
The shoes that climbers used to wear were also much heavier and offered inferior traction.
The north face is a collection of steep faces, rocky cliffs and overhangs. Here, Roger Schäli, one of Switzerland's best climbers, makes his way up.
In the three years before the first summit on July 24, 1938, falls, avalanches, falling rocks, freezing temperatures and exhaustion had already claimed the lives of eight climbers, including a number of Germans and Austrians. But this did little to discourage the waves of climbers determined to solve what was then known as the "last problem," the final unmastered ascent in the Alps.
The group that solved this problem was made up of a German team and an Austrian team. The members were (from left to right) Heinrich Harrer, Ludwig Vörg, Anderl Heckmair and Fritz Kasparek. This photo is dated July 24, 1938, the day they conqured the north face after a four-day climb.
It takes much less time to climb the north face today. In 2008, Ueli Steck (right) climbed it in two hours and 48 minutes. In 2011, fellow Switzerland native Dani Arnold (left) shaved 20 minutes off the record. "The first people to climb it were already very good climbers," Arnold says. "The biggest advance has been with the hardware."
The north face of the Eiger, located in the Bernese Alps in Switzerland, has claimed the lives of dozens of ambitious climbers.
The first group to summit the north face poses after the climb in 1938.
Here, spectators observe the 1938 ascent from below.
This 1938 image shows boots, ropes, hooks and clips used by the mountaineers at the time. Thanks to new technology, getting to the top can be achieved in a fraction of the time it once took.
