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Home » Features » 42 Mountain Profile: The Eiger Contradiction, Part II

42 Mountain Profile: The Eiger Contradiction, Part II

Since the first ascent in 1938, the story of the Eiger North Face has haunted generations of alpinists. In The White Spider, Heinrich Harrer defined its legacy as the “the eternal longing of every truly creative man to push on into unexplored country, to discover something entirely new–if only about himself.” For the conclusion of our two-part Eiger series, Martin Gutmann unfolds layers of facts and legends to see how the history of the peak still serves as an archetypical narrative for our community, reflecting the contradictions within our identities, values and dreams. Rainer Rettner, Jeff Lowe, Daniel H. Anker and Ueli Steck offer their own versions of the enduring Eiger myth.

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