The Eiger is an iconic mountain, and its north face has been a testing ground for the world's strongest climbers, which is why what happened on Tuesday, March 22, makes us proud.
“Our” Giacomo Mauri of the Ragni di Lecco , together with his climbing partner Federico Secchi, climbed the north face of the Eiger via the Heckmair route: a push started at 3 am to complete the feat in a day.
For over a decade, the Eiger was a key objective of mountaineering in the 1920s and 1930s, one of the “last three problems” of the Alps according to the Bavarian mountaineers of the Munich School (the other two were the north face of the Matterhorn and that of the Grandes Jorasses).
The route taken by Giacomo Mauri and Federico Secchi was the same as the first ascent of the north face of the Eiger, completed on 24 July 1938 by the German mountaineer Anderl Heckmair together with Ludwig Vörg and the Austrians Fritz Kasparek and Heinrich Harrer.
The key to success, in those pioneering years when equipment and technique were constantly evolving, was Heckmair's use of 12-point crampons, including two frontal ones: a novelty at the time, they allowed for significantly more efficient progression on the icy, overhanging terrain of the Eiger's north face. The first climbers took four days to find the route and conquer the "killer mountain": today, only the strongest climbers manage to complete the ascent in a single day.
But Giacomo Mauri is no stranger to the challenges of north faces: in October 2021, together with David Bacci, he repeated the Bonatti route on the north face of the Matterhorn, another historic and highly challenging climb.
The Eiger is another step in a mountaineering career that is progressing rapidly.
The story of the adventure in Giacomo's words:
After a few months away from the mountains, first due to poor health and then due to school commitments, I was desperate for adventure. So I decided to train on the walls at home and climb some ice falls to regain my confidence and test myself in more relaxed environments, before moving on to other mountains. My initial plan was to climb Mont Blanc, but partly due to the conditions and partly because I couldn't find a partner, I couldn't bring myself to complete a project... However, by chance, while surfing the internet, I saw that two mountain guides from Lombardy had climbed the Eiger, and I immediately wanted to go. I started looking for partners, but couldn't find anyone, so I gave up. Then, almost by chance, Fede Secchi, a well-known mountain guide and talented mountaineer from Bormio, wrote to me, and we decided to go together.
Federico knows the wall and wants to climb it in a day. I know it's quite a climb, and I'm not particularly confident. Between us, I'd have preferred to do it in two days...but so be it.
It's Tuesday, March 22nd, 3:00 AM. We're attacking the wall. Everything goes smoothly, Fede is in good shape and it shows, she's straining my neck as I suspected, but we manage to climb everything in one day. Once we've gathered our gear, we take one last look at the wall, simply immense and beautiful.
