Eiger North Face - First Pillar | 2383m
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Route Information
Specials thanks to Ieva Grauduma for tracking this route and taking picture and video with her drone. We were climbing together!
This route is intended to climb the first pitches on the mythic Eiger North Face! You start this hardcore adventure from Grindelwald where you can park your car at the cabel car station. Take an amazing ride with the Eiger Express cabel car to Eiger Glaciar Station. You will fly very close in front of the Eiger North Face and you will start to be very worried about your plans. You will be able to see the Rote Floh, the Difficult Crack, the Hinterstoisser Traverse, the Death Biwak, the Ramp, the Traverse of the Gods, the White Spider.
Leave the cable car Eiger Express at Eiger Glaciar Station. From there rack your climbing gear in your harness and start following this approach route. It will lead you to the first cliff that you must climb.
That cliff is covered with snow and is extremelly sliding. There are not many cracks to set trad equipment so basically the leader will be not much belayed. You have to use two ice tools and fully automatic ice crampons. Use better a double rope of 60 m to make sure you can escape rappelling back.
After climbing that first cliff, the leader can find a place to install a climbing station and belay the second.
You guys will be on a traverse cover of snow that allows some traction. Now you can move in traverse to the east along this snow field. It looks safe but this traverse has quite exposition and 50° inclination.
If you got it, you will be now at the accurate start point to entry the Heckmeir Route. From this point I do not have information about what is possible. Your concern has to be always about possible irreversibility of that you climb. Remember the Eiger North Face will not welcome you and maybe you will be traped on that horror and forced to climb up until dead. If that happens then there is a escaping point 800 m above. That is a hole that links to the railway inside the Eiger. But that climbing might me time consuming, very stepy and highly dangerous.
The best option is try to come back and rappel back to the bottom. It is very difficult to find a stable anchor to rappel. You should plan some trad for sacrificing. I leave two tricams last time.
If your rappel is successful (the anchor did not fail) then you are now safe again and out of the evilish influence of the Mordwand.
Now hike down to Grindelwald following this path. Congratulations.
Taking into account that you need quite much climbing gear I consider that you need a car for this.
Drive to Grindelwald. Take a view of the face already.
You can spend the night on your car (what I do). Parking 15 min is allowed at some places. If you stay in the car maybe the police is not going to fine you.
At 6:30 drive to the parking of the cabel car terminal. Park your car there. It cost 24€.
Go to the toilet, shop in supermarkts inside terminal, have breakfast.
Take the first Eiger Express (35€) at 8:00. You will buy only one way because you will hike down back to Grindelwald. You will finish your climbing in the evening when the Eiger Express doesn't work anymore.
Back to the terminal in Grindelwald enjoy shops and unpark your car.
This is not about huts. It is an approach route bringing you to the starting point of climbing the Eiger North Face. You will spend much time trying to climb in difficult conditions.
I brought Biwak bag, sleeping bag (1.7 kg) and Isomate to make a planed biwak. But I found that too heavy. So now I am for going climb light and hike down to Grindelwald with the head lamp. You can make a stop at the ski hut and eat something.
My equipment:
- Crampons for ice Petzl Dart
- 2 ice tools for dry tooling (remove machelots) Petzl Ergonomic
- double rope Petzl 60 m 7.7 mm
- 3 friends Totem middle size, 3 friends Allien small size
- 6 quick drops
- 3 slings for climbing station 180 cm with doppelter bullin
- Felshacken
- 1 short ice screw
- 4 tricams
- sleeping system for biwak?
- Kocher to melt snow?
- walkie talkies
- helm, head lamp, etc...
- gloves: inner, normal from Decathlon, Faustlinger
- chemical warmers from Decathlon: very useful for biwak and for emergency of freezing fingers.
- snow shoes?
The approach might be very tiring in deep snow. The climbing of the Eiger North Face is known to be the most dangerous activity to do in the Alps. The Eiger North Face is called Mordwand. These plans are about climbing the begining of the first cliff leading to the begining of the Eiger North Face. This is supposed to be at an admissible degree of danger.
If you are using our route you must probably be an alpinist and you know well what you are doing.
The Eiger North Face is not equiped with bolts and there are not many cracks for trad equipment. The cliffs are extremelly sliding and feel unstable. The rock is made of limestone that breaks when you try to make an anchor for rappelling. There are also avalanches and stone falls.
| Technical Difficulty | Medium Difficult | |||||||||||
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| Gear | Helmet , Gloves , Ropes | |||||||||||
| Popularity | 2 | |||||||||||
Route statistics
| Highest point | 2383m | |||||||||||
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| Total gain | 200m | |||||||||||
| Total loss | 1599m | |||||||||||
| Duration | 04h10m | |||||||||||
| Distance | 13.8Km | |||||||||||
| Rating | 907 | |||||||||||
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