Mother Nature pulls the plug on Twight expedition

This is a damage report. Kevin Cooney and I met with failure in our attempt to enchain the Three Great North Faces of the Alps. Conditions were such that we never even set foot on a climb.

On March 4 we began reconnaissance of the connections between each peak--routes we had no physical experience with prior to arriving in Europe. We biked from Aosta to Cervinia in Italy and were surprised by the steepness of the roads. The map showed 1,500 meters of elevation gain over 27 kilometers and that seemed totally reasonable until we "got after it." Once we realized how hard some of the connections were going to be, we quit factoring them into the enchainment as "easier days."

This meant we had to find the most efficient way to accomplish every single aspect of the traverse. Happily, we were gifted with 12 days of perfect weather in early March. And we spent four of those days trying four different routes between the Rhone Valley (where we'd end up after the Matterhorn) and the north side of the Eiger.

First, we skied over the Lotschenpass but vetoed it due to extreme avalanche hazard. Then we tried crossing the range via the long, low-angled Kandefirn glacier. Again, we vetoed this as too dangerous should it snow--the surface underneath was blown hard by the wind and anything that fell on top of it was sure to slide. This traverse was more dangerous than the Lotschenpass and physically far more demanding (over 2,000 meters of elevation gain as opposed to 1,200 meters).

Then we tried the Grimsel Pass. It's a road in summer, so we thought it might offer easy passage. This solution would remove one of the psycho hill climbs from the biking program. It worked out more or less. The avalanche danger was above the road instead of under our feet. (The avalanche hazard is so great at times during the winter that the road is closed five months out of the year.)

We believed the ease of passage outweighed the risk. But at the same time we explored the possibility of reversing the order of the mountains and tried to reach the Rhone Valley from the top of the Eiger. This was by far the easiest of all routes, involving a mere five kilometers down the relatively flat Aletschgletscher, then across the Lotschenluke and a 1,500-meter ski descent down into Blatten where we'd get on the bikes. But we left this as an alternative to the Grimsel Pass and the original order of ascents in case it snowed too much or we got nowhere on the Grandes Jorasses.

Once we knew how to do the traverse we began a three-day rest and preparation period before launching. Our rest period coincided with the end of the good weather. The European Alps changed from winter to spring weather patterns overnight.

Spring often brings snowfall alternating with warm days, which creates a high avalanche hazard, although slopes do stabilize quickly. One day it snowed 30-40 centimeters down to an altitude of 1,500 meters, and the next day the freezing level rocketed to 3,300 meters. The following day an avalanche hit the deck of the Leschaux Hut while we were all standing there. Needless to say, we didn't attempt the Grandes Jorasses. This was our first false start, and we retreated to wait for conditions to improve.

But there was no high pressure on the weather maps and it looked like we'd have to make do with two to three day spells of "reasonable" weather. The frustration level was intense, especially for the film crew who watched their plans for a cool television program unravel in the wind.

After three days of waiting and snowfall in the mountains we decided to reverse the order to allow avalanche conditions to settle out on the descent off the Jorasses. So we skied up to Keline Schedegg for a look at the Eiger. The forecast wasn't perfect, calling for northwest winds and cold temperatures with some precipitation. We went anyway once our support man, Tadd Linn, set a ski track to the bottom of the face.

The wall was running with spindrift at 7 a.m. We sat in the bitter wind with all our clothes on and tried to imagine how slow and cold it would be up there as a team of three (Scott Backes would accompany us on each face as the climbing camera man).

You can deal with those kinds of temperatures in Alaska because you're used to them and the Range demands it--but I've never seen it that cold in the Alps. The temperatures at the Jungtraujoch (3,600 meters) reached a high of minus 22 degrees Celsius (around minus 4 Fahrenheit) with constant winds of 30-40 kilometers per hour and gusts up to 70 kilometers per hour. Definite finger removal weather. But it was the spindrift that drove us back. Snow on the wall had not consolidated in two days of good weather, and more snow showers kept adding to it.

We turned our backs and beat ourselves up about retreating--but did so just the same. We were out of time and instead of throwing good money after bad, we pulled the plug.

All in all there were many reasons for failing, but none more important than the weather. The trip would have turned out far differently too, had we not invited the film crew from American Adventure Productions to cover the traverse. The climbing community is small and tightly knit, and the number of people who could actually understand the difficulty--physical and mental--of this particular project are few. Certainly outsiders cannot. Neither can we, as climbers, communicate it effectively.

On top of this, good climbers are necessarily opportunistic; when conditions aren't good enough to complete an intended project, they turn to other objectives. This adaptability is often what differentiates a great alpine climber from a good one. But when one's objectives are being partially determined by the exigencies of a film crew that has pre-sold a particular subject, opportunistic ascents can't take place.

We happened across two absolutely incredible waterfall climbing areas in good condition and not at all "climbed out." New routes abounded. As well, even though the north faces were drier than I've ever seen them (you couldn't get on to the Shroud on the Jorasses to save your life), conditions on south-facing ice and mixed routes in the mountains were good. We might have been able to acquit ourselves on any number of big lines had the opportunity presented itself.

But we invited Hollywood to the house (and accept responsibility for doing so), and they came with their money and their own ideas and their habit of being in control. I hope I can learn to guard my precious climbing experiences for myself in the future and if Hollywood comes knocking, agree to give them tricks for the camera but nothing of my soul.

We know how to do the enchainment now. We know what conditions must be like on the faces for us to have a chance at success. We know how to train for the effort. We know that we'll need to spend three months rather than one month in the Alps waiting for the right conditions. So does that mean we'll be going back?

I'm not sure. I do know that with projects of this magnitude you rarely get it right the first time. The first effort is spent on learning how to actually give it a valid try. For now, we retreat, recover, and reevaluate. I imagine that the future will sort itself out ... as usual.