Eiger Obsession (eBook)

Facing the Mountain that Killed My Father

John Harlin (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2007 | 1. Auflage
352 Seiten
Simon & Schuster (Verlag)
978-1-4165-3931-5 (ISBN)

Infos

A historic memoir by the noted Alpine climber and journalist who undertakes an epic climb of The Eiger in Switzerlandthe very same mountain that not only made his father ';Eiger John' famous, but killed him in 1966.In the 1960s an American named John Harlin II changed the face of Alpine climbing. Gutsy and gorgeoushe was known as ';the blond god'Harlin successfully summitted some of the most treacherous mountains in Europe. But it was the north face of the Eiger that became Harlin's obsession. Living with his wife and two children in Leysin, Switzerland, he spent countless hours planning to climb, waiting to climb, and attempting to climb the massive vertical face. It was the Eiger directthe direttissimawith which John Harlin was particularly obsessed. He wanted to be the first to complete it, and everyone in the Alpine world knew it. John Harlin III was nine years old when his father made another attempt on a direct ascent of the notorious Eiger. Harlin had put together a terrific team, and, despite unending storms, he was poised for the summit dash. It was the moment he had long waited for. When Harlin's rope broke, 2,000 feet from the summit, he plummeted 4,000 feet to his death. In the shadow of tragedy, young John Harlin III came of age possessed with the very same passion for risk that drove his father. But he had also promised his mother, a beautiful and brilliant young widow, that he would not be an Alpine climber. Harlin moved from Europe to America, and, with an insatiable sense of wanderlust, he reveled in downhill skiing and rock-climbing. For years he successfully denied the clarion call of the mountain that killed his father. But in 2005, John Harlin could resist no longer. With his nine-year-old daughter, Sienahis very age at the time of his father's deathand with an IMAX Theatre filmmaking crew watching, Harlin set off to slay the Eiger. This is an unforgettable story about fathers and sons, climbers and mountains, and dreamers who dare to challenge the earth.

Textauszug

OneThe Shattered Pillar When I was a kid it always bothered me that Dad hadn't been able to survive most of his 4,000-foot fall. He would have wanted to savor the event: his 'ultimate experience,' the one he had been looking forward to, even though he wanted it to come later. My mother made sure that the film in his movie camera was developed, because he would have filmed the whole thing if possible. That's just how he was, and it would have been strange if he'd changed at the last minute. Or maybe he would have. Changed, that is. Another minute of life might have been enough time for him to reflect on his children, ages eight and nine, and to realize how selfish it was to die when they needed him. Or maybe he would have learned that the opportunity to watch his children grow up, to participate in their lives, is a much greater adventure than dying. And what about his parents? Did he think about how he was hurting them? No, I don't think he did. But if he'd had that minute to think, perhaps he would have. Maybe it's best he didn't. It was too late, anyway. But who am I to criticize? My own nine-year-old daughter is watching me through the telescope as I climb past where Dad came down. I didn't want her to be watching, that's just how it worked out. I'm here, climbing up the Eiger, headed toward the place where Dad's rope broke almost forty years ago. When I was young I believed the final sentences of Dad's biography: 'Johnny has decided that, when he is grown, he wants to be a naturalist and forest ranger, with plenty of skiing on the side, and some mountaineering as well. Not on the Eiger, though, the Eiger is his father's. His own eye is on the Matterhorn.' That had been true when Dad died, when I was nine and he had promised to take me up the Matterhorn as soon as I turned fourteen. It did not stay true after I became obsessed with climbing and turned my eye on the Eiger. This morning, when I tied into the rope, I was in the grips of destiny. I knew I'd be here someday. I could have changed my fate, except that this is the fate I chose. My only fear was whether I would measure up to the challenge. For me, death isn't the ultimate adventure, it's the ultimate failure. And while I can find no evidence that Dad ever wrote about needing his children, I write about my daughter all the time. It would be hard to find two people more different than my father and myself. And yet a few years ago I was in a hut on the Italian side of the Matterhorn, perched on a sharp ridge at 12,000 feet, overhanging thousand-foot drops on both sides. A storm raged outside, and every so often the door would fling open and otherwordly apparitions appeared, clad in crampons, roped together, and coated in wind-driven snow. The door would slam shut and the climbers would shake off their snow-encrusted clothing. At an adjacent table an older man kept staring at me as my partner and I prepared our dinner. He was lean and weathered, maybe sixty, and reflected forty years of mountaineering past, with at least another decade left to go. His friends were all speaking in Czech, but this man was quietly staring at me. Finally he urged his young friend, who spoke English, to approach my table. 'My friend wants to know,' he said, 'are you John Harlin?' The older man didn't even know I existed. But he'd been climbing in the 1960s, back when everyone knew about Dad, whose name was also John Harlin, and he'd seen my father's pictures. The next morning he and everyone else in the hut went down, scared off by the storm's aftermath: ice-coated rock. My partner and I continued to the summit and over to the Swiss side of the mountain. We were on our...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 6.3.2007
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Biografien / Erfahrungsberichte
• Themenwelt: Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Sport
• ISBN-10: 1-4165-3931-X / 141653931X
• ISBN-13: 978-1-4165-3931-5 / 9781416539315