Taming der Eiger

Dark and forbidding, the great triangle of granite rises 13,040 ft. out of the Swiss Alps. Men were dying on its sheer sides as far back as the 12th century, when the monks named it der Eiger, or the Ogre.

Even in the summertime, the north wall of der Eiger is still one of the great climbs in the world--17 men have died there since 1935. But not until this month did any climbers dare tackle the north wall in the winter, when the storms that swirl down from the peaks can snuff out a party in one capricious attack.

Leader of the group was a German named Toni Hiebeler, 32. editor of an obscure Alpinist magazine in Munich called the Mountain Companion. Hiebeler was driven to conquer der Eiger by the Alpinist's special lust for revenge: his best friend had crashed to his death on the north wall in 1953.

Hiebeler carefully recruited three crack climbers for his party: a tough Bavarian carpenter named Anton Kinshofer, 27; a pink-cheeked Bavarian sawmill hand named Andreas Mannhardt, 22; and an Austrian named Walter Almberger, 28, who worked in an iron mine 1.600 ft. below the earth's surface. For quick energy, the methodical Hiebeler got an Austrian jam factory to devise a special marmalade packed with calories and vitamins. He designed boots armored with three layers of outer leather; he bought special plastic helmets and tough, extra-thin ropes. Keeping their plans a tight secret, the men practiced all winter on rocky, ice-coated walls. A fortnight ago the four slipped out of their hotel before dawn and tackled der Eiger.

By the second morning the team was up to the traverse called the Hinterstois-ser. after a German climber who died there in 1936. The ice was too shallow for their ice pitoris, too deep for their rock pitons. Anchored only by their hand picks, the four were inching upwards when Kinshofer suddenly fell. Sorhehow the other three managed to absorb his shock when he hit the end of the rope. Gingerly the team passed "death bivouac," where two members of the first north wall team froze to death in 1935. The fourth night out, watching his tiny, portable barometer fall ominously, Hiebeler began to pray that the weather would hold. It did: the morning was cloudless.

But the climbers were still a long way from their goal. The next night, with temperatures down to 12DEG below zero, Hiebeler dozed with his feet dangling in space. As daylight came, skiers gathered far down below to stare through telescopes at the four specks crawling upwards on der Eiger. With surprising ease, the four surmounted "the spider," a notorious, four-pronged glacier that caused the death of Italy's Stefano Longhi in 1957.

Last week, on the seventh day of their ascent, the four men finally stalked up the last, sloping ice field and stood to gether in blinding sunlight at the summit.

"We didn't say much," said Alpinist Toni Hiebeler later. "We just stood still for five minutes after we made it, shaking hands and saying 'thanks' to each other.

No outsider can feel the spirit of friend ship that comes from such an adventure." But would he do it again? "Never."

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