Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
CHAPTER 11
THE BOYS ARE BACK
The summer of 1976 found Alex working on a number of projects on his Alpine hit
list. The cherry he most wished to pick was a 'last great problem' on the Grandes
Jorasses - the vertical ice couloir that splits the wall to the left of the Central
Couloir. It was an iconic problem on a face that had attracted the great stars of
alpinism for decades, as Alex points out in his introduction. Chris Bonington, Dou-
gal Haston, Mick Burke and Bev Clark had tried to climb this route in the winter of
1972 using the kind of siege-style tactics then employed in the Himalaya. In his
article 'Cold Comfort' in Mountain magazine, Alex showed respect for his prede-
cessors. But for Alex, the greatest way to display that respect was to learn from
them, then to succeed where they had failed.
Cold Comfort
If by chance you had been looking for Anderl Heckmair on the afternoon of 1 July
1931, you could not have done better than to be somewhere on the great sweep of
glacier that flows down from the north wall of the Grandes Jorasses. At that time the
face was unclimbed, but Heckmair and his companion, Gustav Kroner, were intent
on changing all that. They made their bid in the Central Couloir, but turned back
after three hundred feet so you should have met them on their retreat.
Their friends, Hans Brehm and Leo Rittler, were less fortunate. They adopted
much the same approach to the problems presented by the wall, except that they
started on the right-hand side of the initial ice slope, under the Pointe Whymper.
They were wiped out. Their bodies were found shortly afterwards by Heckmair and
Kroner, who had returned for another attempt - which they promptly abandoned,
along with their general designs on the couloir.
The same year also saw Franz and Toni Schmid on the scene, fresh from their Mat-
terhorn climb. The phenomenal Willo Welzenbach, and his equally talented partner,
Ludwig Steinauer, put in an appearance as well. To men of this calibre, the initial ice
slope must have seemed a tempting way on to the face, whilst the easily visible rib-
bons of ice above must have tickled the imagination with hopes of success.
All were very experienced ice-climbers. Welzenbach's remarkable achievements in
the Oberland and elsewhere are well documented and the Heckmair-Kroner finish
to his route on the Charmoz north face has impressed at least three modern ice-
climbers I know.
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