Climb the mythical Eiger
© Tom Grant
mid July-early september
Fitness level: excellent
Group size 1p/guide
Contact us for price
The summit of the Eiger by Mitteleggi
Dreaming about climbing the Eiger? Make it come true.
The Eiger is one of the most iconic mountains in the world, featured in many books and movies and being one of the true pearls of a mountain to scale among alpinists from all over the globe. The striking 3970 m high Swiss peak has many different routes, none of them are particulary easy. The most famous climb is the 1800m tall Eiger North face, called the Eiger Nordwand. Our ascent follows the sky line and mountain ridge called the Mitteleggi Route which is a legendary route by any means characterized by massive exposure and engaging climbing through out the ascent. The scenery is spectacular as Eiger is surrounded by massive glaciers and the Swiss landscape underneath with Grindelwald village under our feet. When we climb, we are easily drawn to being in the very moment, just focusing on the climbing and the extraordinary sensation of following in the footsteps of legendary alpinists that have scaled the mountain decades before us. The challenge is still extremely physical and a true test piece for any alpinist. With a guide by your side, you are well looked after the whole time but the team work is essential the whole way. This is why climbing the Eiger requires pre-training with your guides to get ready for the adventure on this legendary mountain.
The route to the summit of eiger
The ascent starts by taking the historical train called the Jungfraubahn cogwheel railway up to the Eismeer station. It zig zags its way up towards Jungfraujoach inside the Eiger mountain itself. After exiting the train, we walk down a tunnel to reach a rapell that takes us out and onto the Kallifirn glacier before starting the climbing towards the Mitteleggi hut on the first day of our ascent. It’s a unique experience that many climbers consider one of the most special ones, with its almost surreal feeling of exiting the mountain itself high above the spectacular glaciers in order to start the climb up! A mixture of pitched rock climbing up to 5.7 and easy scrambling leads us up to the Mittellegi Hut (3,355 m). Having the benefits of the high mountain huts like the one on Mitteleggi ridge, gives us the luxury of climbing with a lightweight pack and a prepared meal waiting for us at arrival.
The next day the climb starts early and we follow the narrow rock ridge towards the summit. There are good sections of climbing on the ridge and the final section to the summit is typically on a snow fin using crampons and an ice axe. Our route is long, requiring concentration and climbers need to maintain lots of energy through the day to well tackle the difficulties. The descent goes down the south ridge with a series of rappels, lowers, down-climbing and traversing until we reach the Mönch saddle.
How we do it
To climb the Eiger is a 10 day program. Climbers receive pre-climb training on peaks over 4,000 m and rock climbing training in Chamonix, France to prepare well for the ascension of the Eiger. We want to make sure that you are well acclimatized and have enough experience to be able to climb the Eiger. It is a difficult climb that needs previous experience from Alpine climbing and a very good fitness level. It is a mandatory 1:1 climber-to-guide ratio on the Eiger portion of the days and maximum 1:2 on training days although we do recommend 1:1 also on the training days to optimize the guided experience and enhance the choice of routes we can do on training days. This will give us a better chance to summit the Eiger.
We need to make sure that you have enough previous climbing experience and we also offer specific guided training programs to start making our climbers ready for the Eiger. Once the climber has satisfying previous experience, the 10-day program to climb the Eiger can start. These 10 days are to acclimatize on 4000m peaks and train with your guide to get ready for the summit attempt and it includes time for a weather window. To climb the Eiger, we need to make sure that conditions line up for a safe climb. The mountain weather is not always possible to match and if we were to be unlucky with the conditions for the summit days, we will of course offer alternative amazing mountain peaks to climb to make the most of the experience. Our aim is to be ready for Eiger when we get the window.
Prerequisites
The Eiger is a technical alpine rock and snow/ice climb. This climb requires climbers to have previous experience rock climbing (5.7 grade) in mountain boots and being comfortable climbing on steep firm snow and ice. Along with the technical level, summit day on the Eiger is an highly physical day requiring climbers to be in excellent physical condition. Prior climbs like the Matterhorn, Denali, and other long technical alpine climbs in the Alps are good experience for the variety of terrain we will encounter on the Eiger (rock, ice/snow). Climbers need to have alpine rock climbing experience to be accepted to this program. The Matterhorn is a great climb to get climbers ready for the Eiger.
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