‘The walk is shot through with melancholy and romance’: a new trail to the north face of the Eiger

The hike offers dramatic views of the Swiss Alps’ ‘murder wall’ – and poignant insights into the climbers who first braved it. For the son of one of those pioneers, it had a special resonanceA few years ago, my dad told me of a mountain where I could easily sense another world. “There is a special air and light,” he had said, vaguely. “You just have to walk close to it to feel and see it. Stand in one place and just look up.”The mountain on my dad’s mind that day was the Eiger, Switzerland’s 3,970-metre ogre of limestone and ice. Like few others, the peak exerts a gravitational pull on climbers and it remains the chief symbol of the Bernese Oberland; its most notable feature, the 1,800-metre north face, is the largest in the Alps. This gigantic slab looms over the village of Grindelwald, to the south-east of the town of Interlaken, appearing at sunrise as an immense black spectre in a valley of green. Continue reading...

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