After working on a new route on the North Face of the Eiger for three days, Thomas Huber and Jonas Schild returned home. They plan to try again after Christmas, conditions permitting. Their reason for turning back is unclear.
“We were able to set up our first bivouac and made two new pitches,” Thomas Huber wrote on social media.
Best in winter
“We have the whole winter, plenty of time,” Jonas Schild told ExplorersWeb. Note that the North Face of the Eiger is actually best climbed in winter, because ice and hard snow fuse together the fragile rock.
“It should be not too cold, so we can climb properly, but not too warm, to avoid too much rockfall,” Schild explained.
Traverse on the North Face of the Eiger. Photo: Thomas Huber
Schild also cleared up some confusion about exactly when he and Thomas Huber were on the face. It was at the beginning of November, although their social media posts suggested that the climb was ongoing.
Stefan Siegrist will join Huber and Schild on their next push up the face.
Two generations
Five years ago, Huber, 58, and Siegrist, 52, started this new route, which they called Memoriam as a tribute to deceased climbing friends. Thomas’s brother, Alex Huber, joined them on that first attempt. On this most recent push, 32-year-old Jonas Schild added some young blood to the veteran team.
Schild admits he enjoys the chance to “hang out with the oldies,” as he humorously put it.
“This is not meant to sound disrespectful, quite the opposite,” he wrote. “They don’t let their age slow them down at all. And that also applies to their lives away from the mountain. Seeing how relaxed and open they still are about life is a great enrichment for me. It is always nice to see that getting older does not necessarily mean conforming more and more to the standard way of life.”
