Passion Eiger

Roger talks about the first few climbing meters, about success and failure, about the peculiarities that climbing one of the most famous mountains of this world bring.

Alpinist Roger Schäli climbs the most difficult routes alpine style around the globe. Or he establishes new, yet unclimbed passages. He has climbed the Eiger over 50 times in total. He was able to score the first free ascents of the three Eiger Direttissimas. A first ascent of the currently hardest rock-climbing route through the north face of the Eiger followed.

Roger Schäli also talks about his youngest adventure, the North 6 project. He climbed the six biggest north faces of the Alps consecutively with his rope partner Simon Gietl in 18 days in September 2021. They biked from one north face to the next. This is reason enough for Roger to focus on his favorite mountain in his presentation. Passion Eiger is about the first few climbing meters, about success and failure, about the peculiarities that climbing one of the most famous mountains of this world bring.

The Eiger and Roger Schäli. It was probably love at first sight. When he was 18 the Swiss professional alpinist climbed the famous 3000-meter-high mountain for the first time via the Mittellegi Ridge to the 3970 meter high “Haupt”; a year later the young man from Sörenberg celebrated his north face premiere. In the summer of 2019, Schäli was able to write his 50^th complete Eiger ascent in the books. A pretty impressive number even for the extreme climber.

„You must be humble towards this imposing mountain. The many successful experiences are matched by the same number of attempts. The Eiger is relentless. I’ve been in the north face dozens of times without standing on the summit or exiting on the west flank,” says the 41-year-old.

Many things must come together to be able to complete a free climb of the big Eiger routes. For example, Schäli put seven years of preparation into planning, disciplined preparation, hard training, and uncountable attempts for the “Japanese Direttissima” until he was able to climb this route.

Things went a bit faster in the summer of 2019. The professional climber was able to finish several projects on the Eiger successfully within a few days. First he climbed „Löcherspiel“ with Lucien Caviezel. Several days later he scored the complete redpoint of the famous and challenging route “Deep Blue Sea.” Schäli concluded his “Eiger Summer” with the first one-day redpoint ascent of the difficult multi-pitch route “La Vida es Silbar” with Sean Villanueva O’Driscoll.

But Schäli hasn’t had enough of the Eiger just yet. “The Eiger means a lot to me. I‘m very familiar with this mountain. There’s no other mountain I’ve spent this much time on. Even if the Eiger is very familiar to me: It remains a myth with many magical but also tragic stories. The more I climb on the Eiger, the more I feel connected to this mountain and then more it represents my career as a mountaineer.”