Favre and Welfinger conquer Paciencia 8a of the Eiger North Face

In August, climbers Nils Favre (SUI) and Symon Welfinger (FRA) succeeded in free ascending the Paciencia route (8a/900 meters) on the notorious Eiger North Face. With 24 pitches as well as difficulty grade 8a, the route, which was first climbed by Stephan Siegrist and Ueli Steck in 2003, is one of the most difficult and demanding routes in the Alps. Since then, it has only been repeated by a handful of rope teams. Both managed to climb all pitches flash or onsight.

After the two had to postpone their project a total of three times due to bad weather, a suitable weather window presented itself at the end of August. In the evening, the omens for a successful ascent were still bad, but overnight the rock surprisingly dried. The two Millet athletes decided to tackle the project without prior inspection of the route. Thus, the tour planning took place exclusively with the help of already existing topos and experience reports. One of the biggest difficulties besides the constant cold (less than 10 degrees Celsius) was the heavy luggage. In two 75-liter haul bags, in addition to their climbing equipment, they transported everything necessary for two nights (portaledge, sleeping bag, etc.) and, above all, a lot of provisions and water with them to the heights.

In total, the two climbers needed three days to climb the route. This meant 16 hours of hard work on the first day until they reached the first bivouac around 8 pm. After a short night, the second day then included 18 hours on the rock until the night's rest around 24 o'clock. Even though the cold, lack of sleep, fog and falling rocks gave them a hard time, Nils managed to climb the key pitch with the difficulty grade 8a flash.

There's always a bit of loss: Nils Favre had to master the four-hour descent without his approach shoes - they were also lost unnoticed, as was one of his top climbing shoes. Nevertheless, he was overjoyed when he arrived in the valley: "Cold, fatigue and the heavy haulbags pushed us to our limits. We had trouble finding the right beta at times. Flashing the key pitch despite all the hardships was an extraordinary experience."