Adventure Patagonia & Alps

Roger Schäli has been traveling Patagonia for 20 years. He celebrates the highlight of his career on the six most striking north faces of the Alps, which he connects non-stop on a 1,100 km route under his own power.

Roger Schäli has been traveling Patagonia for 20 years. He spends his first expedition to Cerro Torre mainly in snow caves due to storms, but over time he climbs the mountain on various routes and stands several times on all peaks of the Fitz Roy group. The highlight of his career he celebrates on the six most prominent north faces of the Alps, which he connects non-stop on a 1,100 km route under his own power.

They are considered the six greatest in the Alps: the north faces of the Matterhorn, Eiger, Piz Badile, Grosse Zinne, Petit Dru and Grandes Jorasses. Roger Schäli has long dreamed of climbing these iconic walls nonstop and covering the distances between them under his own power. When he sets out on a cool autumn morning with South Tyrolean Simon Gietl, they face a 1,100 km route, 30,770 meters of ascent and 29,470 meters of descent, which they plan to complete by road bike, on foot, on ropes and by paraglider. "If this becomes my last big adventure, I'll be happy," says the man from central Switzerland, who is one of the best all-round alpinists in the world.

But before the second part of the talk is about "NORTH6", Roger Schäli tells about his numerous expeditions in Patagonia, his second home. There, he looks down on the mighty inland ice from a wide variety of peaks, rushes to a rescue mission with Thomas Huber, flies from Cerro Torre with a paraglider, and finds himself in mortal danger when he makes a fatal mistake while rappelling.

Ever since Roger Schäli was able to walk, the mountains have dominated his life. His home mountain is the Eiger, whose north face he has climbed more than 50 times. He prefers to climb without technical aids and leaves as few traces as possible.