After spending the night on a south-facing ridge, 300m below the summit, cold but in good spirits, the team began their push for the top around 8am. Sir Ranulph said:
“I am very pleased that we succeeded in getting to the top, and I’m really hoping for big money for our charity.
“But to be honest it is more than I would have wanted to have taken on. I think I will have nightmares for a long time over the Traverse of the Gods. My policy of not looking down just wasn’t possible, there was nowhere but down. You have to look down to see the next foothold because it is so totally vertical.”
Yesterday was perhaps their toughest day when they tackled two notoriously difficult sections called the Traverse of the Gods and the White Spider. Sir Ranulph admitted he would never have begun his attempt on the north face of the Eiger if he had known about its terrifying hazards. Of the Traverse of the Gods Sir Ranulph said:
“Had I known that it was part of the thing, I don’t think I would have done it, even for Marie Curie. I thought it was going to be just a more difficult version of the practise climbs I have been doing with Kenton around Chamonix and the Alps. Not the nightmarish thing that it actually was.”
On reaching the summit Ian Parnell said:
“It was a spectacular ridge to the summit, so it was a really nice finish. I’m pretty proud of what we had did. Particularly for Ran. It is quite inspirational for someone, who when he was first interested in the project two years or so ago, you wouldn’t call a climber in any way. And for him to then do a route like the north face of the Eiger, which by any climbers reckoning is one of the big tough routes of the climbing world, it’s impressive.”
The team are heading back to base camp for a well earned bath.
March 2007
