Schaeli and Jasper trilogy at Eiger

All pics by Franke Kretschmann

In early August, Swiss alpinist Roger Schaeli redpointed the Piola Ghilini Direttissima and then fulfilled a long time dream, to redpoint the three direttissima at the north face of Eiger. The Japanese Direttissima that he climbed in 2009 and the Harlin direttissima redpointed in 2010 completes the trilogy. Roger Schaeli teamed up with well known German mountain guide Robert Jasper for all the three free climbs. 

The north face of Eiger has an infamous reputation for fast changing of weather conditions, loose rocks, melting snow, lighting storms and hard winds, all combined making the free climbing extremely difficult. The Schaeli-Jasper team is first to free climb all the three direttissima, the straight forward lines on the north face.

8a met the Salewa athlete at the Arco Rockmasters Festival:

–      I was born in the area and Eiger is my home mountain, my girlfriend’s father did the Japanese direttissima a long time ago in the old fashioned style. So I thought that we, the new generation of climbers, must take it to the next level, it’s time to free climb these routes, Roger Schaeli says.

For the experienced team it has been very important to not change the routes, not adding any new stationary gear. But they did replace some bolts that were in bad conditions at the reunions or rappel points.

–      We asked Michel Piola if it was ok to replace some of the gear, the idea is to not change the character of the climb but no one should die from a poor reunion, Schaeli says.

Every single climb of the direttissima routes have being very hard work for months, waiting for good weather and working the different pitches in every possible occasion. But the patience game paid off.

–      The day you get the perfect conditions, if you have done the previous job well, then it feels easy. From the moment we woke up at 2 o’clock in the night we were confident and enjoyed the climb, Schaeli says.

The Jasper–Schaeli team did the 1400 vertical meters in 14 hours.

Read more www.rogerschaeli.ch

Japanese direttissima 8a

John Harlin Direttissima 7a/M8

Piola Ghilini Direttissima 7c