Day 5

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

The ‘agony and ecstasy’: an ecstasy of the mind; an agony of the body. I woke much refreshed and with that morning-after feeling of "My god, we did it, we really did it". In my mind I could have done it all over again.

My body felt otherwise. Predictably that body, which had held together through everything the Eiger had thrown at it over 4 days, now collapsed. Its job was done and somehow it knew it. Suddenly the rejuvenated mind of an exuberant ‘20 year old’ found itself incarcerated in the broken body of a 47 year old. That body, which had scaled the Difficult Crack, the Hinterstoisser Traverse, three Ice Fields, the Ramp, the Waterfall Pitch, the Traverse of the Gods, the Spider, the Exit Cracks and those final Summit Snow Fields, not to mention getting back down again, was now forced to climb the hut staircase one step at a time, clutching the rail for support.

The litany of injuries was long: badly lacerated fingers from rock climbing, a gashed nose from the ice fall on the Second Ice Field, painfully bruised ribs from the Quartz Crack, an impacted butt and bashed up knee from the falls above the Ice Hose, an injured left hip from harness pressure, a badly strained shoulder from who-knows-what and frost-bitten toes from cold nights and all that front–pointing. But more than that there was just physical exhaustion, linked to lack of sleep, weight loss and an excess of exercise.

An interesting question is could I have kept going if there had been a fifth day? Of course the answer was yes. But there wasn’t a fifth day and my body knew it. It had done its bit and it wasn’t doing any more.

I hobbled around, sorting kit, and joined Mark and the others for breakfast. By this stage the whole hut had learned of our climb. Given that none of the routes up the Eiger were ‘open’, the fact that we had just traversed it in such conditions, including an ascent of the Face, created quite a stir. We were the heroes of a doubtless passing moment.

I felt far from heroic though as I winced again, forcing my now badly swollen feet back into those boots. It was such a tight fit that I couldn’t tie the laces properly and had to miss out some ‘eyes’.

The short snow plod down to the Jungfraujoch was beautiful in the rapidly clearing early morning, but I had difficulty appreciating it. I was in pain, above all in my feet.

We returned down the mountain as paying customers of the railway rather than potential convicts, cowering in the darkness of the tunnel. I must admit I prefer the conventional mode.

Before long we were in the vivid rich green of the Grindelwald Valley. Coming from days in the mountains, where the eyes grow accustomed to black and white, that first blast of green always strikes me. It is a wonderful world we live in. Louis was right.