WHEN Wicklow man Charles Barrington arrived in the Swiss town of Grindlewald in August 1858, the golden age of Alpine climbing was at its height. It was an era when gentlemen of means could visit the Alps, hire local guides and ensure a small place in posterity by bagging an unclimbed mountain, writes John G O'Dwyer
A risk-taker who loved a wager, Barrington arrived when most of the salient Swiss summits had already been claimed. Admittedly, the most celebrated of all Alpine mountaintops was still awaiting a first footfall. But Barrington lacked the resources for an expensive gamble on a first ascent of the intimidating, shark-toothed Matterhorn.
Instead he turned to what was still unclimbed above Grindlewald. The Eiger, at 3,970 metres, was certainly not the highest mountain locally but it possessed the twin advantages of being unclaimed and accessible. And so, with local guides Peter Bohren and Christian Almer, Barrington set out at 3am on August 11th - 150 years ago today - for the west face of a mountain that had repelled all previous assaults. By noon the three were on the summit and the Eiger was theirs.
Ascending a mountain that is not even within the first hundred highest Alpine peaks was unlikely to prove life-changing. Soon afterwards, Barrington returned to Ireland and never climbed seriously again. Without the perspective of later events, it is likely that his main claim to fame would have been his ownership of the racehorse Sir Robert Peel, winner of the inaugural Irish Grand National in 1870.
While the Eiger is an innocuous peak by Alpine standards, it does, however, have one outstanding feature. Its ferocious north face is the most daunting in the Alps, consisting of ice and rotten rock that rises vertically almost 1800 metres above the Alpiglen Valley. Initially it was considered outlandishly impossible by climbers, but by the 1930s a new generation of more technically advanced mountaineers were scanning the face for a line of weakness. None was apparent, but nevertheless, two Munich climbers, Karl Mehringer and Max Sedlmayer, began ascending the Nordwand, as it is known locally, in August 1935, knowing that once they had a foothold high on the face there could be no retreat and no rescue. It would be a case of succeed or die.
Tourists watched through telescopes as the two men battled valiantly upwards for four days, buffeted by storms and peppered by rockfalls. By day five, however, they had disappeared. The Nordwand had claimed its first victims.
Undeterred by this tragedy, four climbers made a second attempt the following year. Forced to turn back when one climber was injured in a rockfall, they discovered that the hardest point of their descent was now covered in ice. Retreat was impossible. When Swiss guides eventually arrived 300 feet below, only one man, Toni Kurz, was still alive and hanging from a rope.
Unable to climb upwards the guides were forced, despite his piteous cries, to leave Kurz dangling for the night. Next day, they were amazed to find him still suspended and alive. All they could do was urge him to abseil down. To do this he spent five hours using his frostbitten hands and teeth to unravel the cord of a short rope. He then lowered this cord and the rescuers attached their rope to it. Kurz pulled up this rope and began abseiling down. A few feet from safety a knot jammed his abseil and refused to budge. This final torment was too much even for the gallant Kurz. Saying "I can do no more", he slumped on his rope and the Eiger had another victim.
As the notoriety of the Norwand spread, there were more attempts, more deaths and a tourism boom for the Grindlewald Valley. Finally the face was successfully climbed in 1938 by the Austrian team of Anderl Heckmair, Ludwig Vörg, Heinrich Harrer and Fritz Kasparek.
The Nordwand had now been transformed into a vast stage. Visitors watched comfortably from the valley auditorium as a succession of climbers tested their fortitude against what soon became known as "the wall of death". Some succeeded, but many perished from falls, exhaustion and exposure, their bodies often remaining roped to the face for months as a macabre attraction for the tourists looking through telescopes.
Eventually, as climbing techniques improved, the dangers lessened but were never eliminated. New frontiers were breached with the first winter ascent in 1961 and a direct line to the summit in 1966. Then, in March 1997, the Eiger story completed a circle - from Barrington to Harrington, as it were - when Dublin climbers Paul Harrington and Martin Daly made the first Irish winter ascent of the Nordwand.
But Barrington's considerable achievement isn't being forgotten. His descendants will erect a memorial to him in Grindelwald this year, in co-operation with the local mayor. And an exhibition called "Rock and Risk" is also running at the Alpines Museum in Berne, to mark the 150th anniversary of the day when an Irishman with little experience of mountain climbing gambled on a first ascent of the Eiger and won handsomely.