The 1936 Eiger Climbing Disaster

(The north face of Mount Eiger)

The Eiger climbing disaster was an attempt to climb the north face of Mount Eiger, a 3967-meter-tall mountain located in Switzerland. The north face had never been climbed from bottom to top before, and a ten-man team thought they had what it takes to make it, hoping to be the first in history to scale the north face.

The north face of Mount Eiger was notoriously dangerous, with numerous deaths in the past from other people wanting to be the first to the top. The climbers were all from either Germany or Austria and all experienced, however before they even started their climb, one of them died during some training at the bottom of the face from a fall.

The weather wasn’t good enough to start such a long climb and the team decided to wait a few days, but after it didn’t let up several of the climbers decided to call it off and return home. Only four remained, Andreas Hinterstoisser, Toni Kurz, Willy Angerer, and Edi Rainer.

The weather soon improved and the team of four decided to begin scaling the cliff, with Hinterstoisser falling 37 meters on the first day of climbing due to a small rock fall, but he was uninjured and decided to continue.

On the second day, the weather turned bad again and visibility quickly dropped, allowing the observers on the ground only glimpses of the climbers through the low clouds. The party was also hit by several rockfalls on the second day, a common problem with this particular mountain. Angerer was hit by a piece of rock on his shoulder, and though he was injured decided to continue with the climb.

Towards the end of day 2, the group took shelter on a ledge as the weather continued to make things difficult, and Angerer’s shoulder injury seemed to be getting much worse. Things quickly went from bad to worse as the group had to cross the Hinterstoisser Traverse, a very technical and tricky part of the cliff, but they had also pulled the original rope they used to ascend back up, due to them not expecting to come down the same way.

The cliff face was also now covered in a thin layer of ice from the bad weather and the rock was impossible to climb, and after Hinterstoisser tried for several hours to make the traverse the group decided their only option was to abseil back down.

Halfway down the group managed to get in contact with a guard at the Eigerwand railway station using a small radio they had, and perhaps out of pride or being sure they would make it safely to the ground told him that everything was fine.

Just as Hinterstoisser was setting up the ropes for the last part of their descent, an avalanche came thundering down the mountain, pushing Hinterstoisser who had unclipped his harness from the group line over the edge and right down to the bottom of the mountain. He died on impact and wasn’t found until several days later, the section of the climb known as the Hinterstoisser traverse was named in his Honor.

As for the other three, the situation wasn’t much better, with Angerer falling and hitting his head against a rock, dying instantly. As for Rainer, the weight of the snow pushing past him forced enormous pressure on his chest, and he died from suffocation. Kurz was in the middle of the rope and lower down than Rainer which allowed him to avoid the main force of the snow, but at this point, he was trapped attached to a rope with one dead friend on a rock below him, and another hanging on the same rope above him.

At the end of the third day of the climb, the local mountain guides realized something was wrong and sent up a rescue party, which had to turn back due to the weather. they did manage to get within shouting distance of Kurz and learned what had happened to his friends.

The next morning the guides returned and managed to get within a few meters of Kurz, but an overhang stopped them from reaching him directly. They tied two ropes together and threw them to Kurz who tried desperately to abseil past the overhang but could not get the knot that connected the two ropes to pass through his carabiner.

At this point Kurz was in a very bad condition, one of his arms had completely frozen and he was in no position to re-tie any knots. He started to lose consciousness and after realizing his time was up he said to the guides “Ich kann nicht mehr” (I can’t go on anymore), and then died. His body was recovered several weeks later by a German climbing team.