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Welcome to 'The Alps'.
This film is brought to you by Holcim
a world leader in building materials.
We have our roots here in Switzerland
where people have worked with the challenges of nature for centuries.
We build for the future so that our children's children can enjoy life
in the beauty of landscapes like the Alps.
We proudly present this real-life story of strength,
performance and passion.
Centuries ago
the Alps were insurmountable
too tall, too rugged too steep to cross.
Overtime, people with ingenuity and courage overcame this
great natural barrier.
Climbers are still attracted to these jagged peaks none more treacherous
than the North Face of the Eiger.
The Eiger has cast a long shadow over the life of author and climber,
John Harlin.
With his wife Adele and his daughter Siena, John Harlin has returned
to his boyhood home,
Switzerland.
Uno.
UNO?
Aaah, how can that be?
Umm... Alright.
Even as a boy, I loved the way these hillsides were sculpted by farmers.
Things have changed in 40 years,
but respect for the natural world is still a way of life here.
My main goal for this trip is to pass that spirit of respect on to
my daughter, Siena.
Where is Switzerland?
Switzerland is this area here.
Sort of, the heart of the Alps, really.
Right in the center of Europe.
How long are the Alps?
Well, they're about 700 miles, in a big arc from Southern France
all the way to Slovenia.
Europe sits between Africa and Asia.
But the continents didn't always look like this.
Way back in time, the continuously shifting plates of the earth's
surface pushed the continent of Africa slowly north,
until it rammed into Europe.
The earth's crust buckled pushing the ocean floor almost
three miles high, folding bands of rock like an accordion.
I love the Alps.
It speaks to my soul to my heart, to be in this environment.
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The Alps are unique.
Almost 20 million people live here in close harmony with nature.
You have villages, little villages in just the most improbable of locations.
It's just amazing that you can even get there at all,
let alone have an entire village way up high on a mountainside.
It gives me such a warm sense of of being in a culture,
a real mountain culture.
As the editor of the American Alpine Journal,
I love to write and to climb and I've actually climbed now on
four continents and done a lot of new routes.
When I was nine, we lived in the Swiss village of Leysin
above Lake Geneva.
Dad and I loved to ski together and climb together.
He had a real reverence for the mountains and he definitely
passed that on to me.
I have very fond memories of our times together.
He was my hero.
But when I was nine years old
Dad's obsession with the Eiger took over our lives.
The Eiger is the most dangerous mountain in Europe and
Dad was determined to put up the hardest route ever attempted.
My life would never be the same.
The North Face of the Eiger has claimed its twenty-seventh victim.
To the dead climber American John Harlin
the funeral service was solemnly observed at Leysin
mourned now by his wife, mother and two children.
I was nine when it happened.
I clearly remember, Mom came into the room crying and told us.
I just couldn't couldn't quite believe it.
It was forty years ago that dad died.
Ever since, I've had unfinished business with the Eiger.
Now the time feels right to confront my fears and honor my father.
Before he leaves Switzerland,
John hopes to climb the North Face of the Eiger at last
and free himself from its shadow.
I promised Adele that I would not attempt the Eiger without
the very best climbers at my side Robert and Daniela Jasper.
Robert has made it all the way up the North Face of the Eiger a dozen times.
His wife Daniela is also a superb climber.
Yeah, John was asking, where could we do some training climbs together?
And I said, what about our backyard?
The Jaspers and I both want to develop a sixth sense about each other
and how we climb.
They are every bit as interested in safety as I am.
When we are on the same rope with John on the Eiger
we need to know if we can trust each other with our lives?
Warm days make the Eiger too risky to climb.
While we waited for cool weather I wanted to show Siena more of
the things that I love about Switzerland.
The mountain passes were once impossible to cross most of the year.
Because of the Alps, the Italian region of Switzerland developed separately
from the French and German parts.
We're in the Southeast tip of Switzerland, the region of Ticino
where the people speak Italian.
The Verzasca Dam in Ticino is over 200 meters high.
If you stacked nine of these dams on top of each other,
they'd be as tall as the North Face of the Eiger.
I knew when I married John that he wasn't afraid of living life
on the edge.
That's who he is.
It's alright. And remember to enjoy it
because this is probably the last time you'll ever do it.
Okay.
Love you! Woohaha!
In the Alps, the tremendous influx of people has raised a new challenge.
How to inhabit these mountains in a way that protects their future?
This is the most famous pass across the Alps...
I met up with Professor Bruno Messerli for his lively insights
on the Alps.
Bruno Messerli studies how we as a species
interact with these mountains.
To connect with the outside world they've had to tunnel through
massive mountains, bridge valleys and carve roads into huge cliffs.
Switzerland looks small on the map but the mountains give
it a large vertical dimension.
I mean this exercise begins several thousand years ago
people came in here and had to adapt to this fantastic landscape.
So would the same farmer have land in the bottom of the valley
and also up in the hill?
Yes. It was not easy, but, look here
you see in the lower valley bottom.
They could plow, they had barley they had the cows, the cattle.
Then come the steep slopes.
And then, there must be the forest.
Then is again grazing land.
And then begins the stony part.
Then comes the snow with the ice.
It is fantastic to have in a vertical structure
all these different belts.
And what kind of different types of rocks are there in the Alps?
Oh, there's limestone which is sedimentary.
There's some crystalline rocks of different types, including granite.
And how tall are the Alps?
Well, they go up to fifteen thousand feet or more.
Tectonic uplift is still pushing the Alps higher but they are
also being torn down by other forces.
As the rock freezes and thaws it eventually cracks.
Gravity and erosion do the rest.
Many of the rocks that slide off these peaks are carted away to the
valleys by the great Alpine glaciers.
Today, as the Earth warms glacier smelt faster than
they can be replenished.
At this rate, even the largest Alpine glaciers will shrink to small
fragments by the end of this century.
To drive this point home
Professor Messerli showed me the Aletsch Glacier
which has retreated two miles since 1850.
It is the longest glacier of the Alps not only of Switzerland, yes.
And it is longer than all the glaciers around Mount Everest.
Really? Oh. Twenty-three kilometers here.
If the glacier was all the way down here 150 years ago
and now it's up there, is it retreating even faster now than it was then?
Yes, we are worried about it.
Glaciers have always gone through cycles.
Each time they advanced glaciers helped reshape the Alps.
... like that, but they are always changing, even today.
But look, if we have something like that...
Today, throughout the Alps, the Ice Age has left its mark.
Although glaciers never touched this ridge, they carved away its
base on both sides.
Pulled down by gravity and erosion the rock fell off
leaving this razor's edge.
Glaciers can carve away the base of a mountain, leaving a single jagged
peak called a "horn".
The most famous such peak is the Matterhorn.
A million years ago the mountain was broader.
But during the Ice Age, each time the glaciers advanced,
they kept grinding downhill scooping out,
and gradually whittling away its base.
Each receding glacier left steeper cliffs below and precarious
unsupported rock above which collapsed under its own weight.
Throughout the Ice Age, the cycle was repeated, until all that was left
was a sharp, towering horn of rock.
At 14,730 feet, this dramatic icon straddles the border between
Italy and Switzerland.
Dad always promised that he and I would climb the Matterhorn together.
We never got the chance.
But I've climbed it twice.
So this is where Whymper stayed, huh?
Edward Whymper was the first to climb the Matterhorn, in 1865,
setting out from the village of Zermatt.
some Italians were going up and he had to race them to the top,
and... Oh yeah.
So he set off from here for the final successful climb.
The Matterhorn was the last great unclimbed mountain in the Alps.
For their first attempts they kept trying from the Italian side
because it looks easier from a distance.
But in fact, the way the geology of the mountain goes,
the holds are much more incut and easier to use on the Swiss side.
Whymper's team made it to the top the first ever to stand on this summit.
But on the descent, the rope broke.
Only Whymper and two of his companions survived.
Many thousands of people come to the Matterhorn each winter
for one thing -- snow.
I study snow to understand the fundamental processes that can
lead to large avalanches.
My friend, Chris Pielmeier is ascientist at a Swiss institute
for avalanche research.
There goes the avalanche.
It's not just skiers who are at risk.
In one recent winter, in the Alps avalanches killed forty-two
people in villages.
By redirecting the windflow these small and innovative structures
keep snowdrifts from accumulating.
You can't stop the full force of a big avalanche once it gets sliding.
You actually have to prevent it from sliding in the first place.
The snowpack consists of many layers held in place by millions of tiny
little bonds between the snow crystals.
By probing the density of each layer Chris can test the stability
of the snowpack.
The crystals constantly change so one layer that was stable could
become very weak, and a weak layer could become strong, in time.
That weak joint can later fail and produce an avalanche.
We trigger avalanches to get information.
In the slide path, we have geophones.
We measure the pressure, the speed.
You only know how powerful it is when you have once measured it.
In 1966, this lonely old hotel at the foot of the Eiger was the base
of operations for Dad's final attempt.
A journalist stood here on the terrace and watched through a telescope
as Dad fell to his death.
Now, this hotel will be our home for a week or a month --
whatever it takes.
The Eiger has the worst weather in the Alps.
The North Face of the Eiger plummets nonstop for over a mile
the tallest and the most treacherous wall of rock in Europe.
It's a huge, steep face of loose and crumbling limestone
a shooting gallery of falling rock.
Even a pebble can kill you.
When it snows, avalanches can knock you off the wall.
But still, we plan to climb when it's cold because there's less rock fall.
The ice and snow lock the loose rock into place.
The summit of the Eiger stands just over 13,000 feet high.
Dad was the first American ever to climb the North Face of the Eiger.
Four years later, he set out to climb the Eiger again
this time, by a radical new route straight up the face.
When yet another blizzard hit Dad and his two teammates
were trapped halfway up the mountain at a place called The Death Bivouac.
Their ropes were suffering from wear and tear.
For nearly two weeks they lived in a snow cave.
When they got a lull in the storm,
they decided to make a final push for the summit.
Dad was going up a rope.
They noticed that the ropes were frayed
but his teammate thought the rope would hold.
Dad's teammates completed the climb.
They named it in his honor The John Harlin Route.
I intend to come back from every climb.
There's no summit, there's no climb that's worth dying for, for me.
John's very tense about this climb.
It's a dangerous face.
Is it worth the risk?
John cares very much that his daughter grows up with him.
The key to climbing safely is being methodical.
I think it's something that John needs to do.
I trust that it's important enough to risk what he has.
He knows what he has, and he would only do something like this
if it were that important to him.
He's going to have to work very hard to shut out all the thoughts
that will undoubtedly be creeping through his mind.
And I think when he reaches the point where his, uh,
where his father fell, urn that is going to be a very
emotional moment for him.
Be careful.
I will. I'll be careful.
Everything will be fine.
We waited for perfect conditions.
It'll be great. I know. I love you.
I love you too. Bye. Bye Siena.
Okay. Bye.
Starting the climb was almost like entering a trance.
I was entering this world of a dream that I'd had for so many years
and now I was finally living it.
I've waited forty years to set foot on the Eiger,
but for the next three days,
I need to put my emotions on hold and try to treat this
like any other climb.
Robert was the first person to tell me that the Eiger was
his favorite mountain -- a place that was a part of his heart and soul
and the only other person I knew who felt that way was my father.
See there's a little diagonal that goes to the right?
Daddy's wearing a yellow jacket.
I don't see him.
Well, keep looking a little closer.
The Eiger is the tallest face in the Alps and it's over a mile high
and when you start up it, you see,
it's a mile high.
This is a 3-day climb.
My back is already really hurting me.
When I got to the bivouac and opened my pack,
I found a note from my ladies.
It says "Dearest John embrace this experience.
Take one step at a time.
And remember that we are with you at all times. I love you, Adele."
I love you, too Adele. And Siena.
Siena wrote "Love, Love Love, Love" all over this.
Well, have a safe night and climb well tomorrow...
When you climb on the Eiger North Face you hear the cowbells and the noises
from down there, but in the same time you feel to be very far away.
I'll be lying on one side the whole night,
but I'll be tied in so I don't have to worry about rolling off.
Starting out before dawn is spooky.
Robert traversed off to the left and I came down off the ledge and
then when Daniela was coming down,
her legs were much shorter and she couldn't reach the foothold.
And there was no protection in.
I was stuck on the bivouac ledge.
And I knew if I would jump and miss the foothold,
I would tumble down about eighty feet before the rope could catch me.
She managed to make it down okay, fortunately.
But it was an ominous start to the day.
When you climb the Eiger, I think you cannot avoid thinking
about the people who died in the wall,
especially if you come to certain places where you know there were
big tragedies and you simply have to think about it.
In a way, this also makes the face very special.
It's very alive.
A scary thing about the Eiger is that the rock is often loose and so,
if you fall and the protection doesn't hold, then you can fall a
very long ways.
Even a dangerous climb can be made safer,
if you just approach it intelligently.
We need to secure the ropes to the cliff
so as I go up, I look for good cracks for anchors, where the rock
is solid enough.
But the rock is coated in ice so even with the axes,
it's hard to get a solid grip.
I followed John through all the difficult sections and I just happened
to be looking through the scope at the moment when he slipped
and naturally my heart stopped.
The weather on the Eiger changes very fast.
Really crazy weather.
Down in the valley you have clear sunshine,
and up there you have a snowstorm.
I have already thought a number of times about my father
and the fact that he came up this route.
And I can't dwell on that too much while I'm climbing.
But we'll see what happens overnight.
I have a long night coming up.
Dad was bivouacked on a ledge like this when he scribbled
a final note to us:
"We're hoping to make the top in a few days
but we're being very safe so don't worry.
I love you all very, very much. Dad."
After we passed the spot where Dad's rope had broken,
I glanced back.
I'd been trying to get past that place for 40 years.
I flung my grief and fear off the mountain, and kept going.
Up here, so high on the face
we're beyond the point of no return.
It's terrifying in a way because you know you can't
go back down... only up.
The weight of forty years is lifted.
But I was emotionally exhausted and so was Daniela.
Oh, God.
Great.
For me, this climb has helped heal an old wound.
But instead of focusing on my connection with Dad like I expected
I felt much closer to my wife and daughter,
who stood by me while I did what I had to do.
We'll see you really soon, okay?
Okay, I love you too. Okay.
By the time I got to the summit my back pain was getting much worse.
Robert persuaded me to get lifted off the mountain.
This was no easy decision for me.
I really wanted to keep going but I knew he was right.
When I landed in the, in the field, and I saw my kids there,
I just felt so great.
It was so good to have them back.
Often the way down is much more dangerous than the way up,
because you are really tired, and so you must think about every step.
Just a little jolt of adrenaline there at the very end.
Congratulations. Oh! Yeah, thank you.
The emotional struggle that I went through on the Eiger was worth it,
because it has allowed me to connect Siena with this love for
the mountains that I felt as a boy.
But I have one more stop to make back to the town of Leysin
where I grew up.
Dad was buried here in a snowstorm.
When I was here before, it had always been a very sad experience,
but this time I felt, I felt like I'd been freed in many ways.
Like I'd done the climb and honored my father and moved on.
It was almost a liberating experience to be here.
These mountains attract strong people.
They always have.
The Alps embrace us, just as they welcomed the first settlers
who looked up at these peaks many centuries ago,
and said to themselves we belong here.