The White Spider

The north face of the Eiger in the Bernese Alps is a nearly vertical wall of rock and ice that killed a string of climbers in the 1930s and earned a fearsome reputation. Heinrich Harrer was one of the four men who made its first successful ascent in July 1938. The White Spider is his account of that climb and a history of the earlier attempts, including the falls, storms, and deaths that turned the face into a symbol of mountaineering danger. The title refers to a snowfield high on the route where the wall narrows into its most exposed passage. Harrer writes from direct experience and from close study of the men who came before him.