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Descending the Eiger the way James Bond might do it

2017
Feb 26


The Eiger -- in the Swiss Alps -- is one of the most forbidding mountains in the world. Locals call it the Ogre. And for more than a century this monster of a mountain has attracted thrill seekers eager to risk their lives on its nearly vertical slopes. More than 60 climbers have frozen or fallen to their deaths. As we first reported in 2015, a new breed of daredevil is taking on the Eiger, not by climbing up the mountain, but by plunging down it. When we heard that after years of planning a new kind of descent was about to be attempted...we went to Switzerland to see firsthand something no one had ever tried before.


At 13,000 feet, the icy summit of the Eiger is too steep and rocky to simply ski down.

[JT Holmes: You ready?]

So JT Holmes is training in three extreme sports to rocket down more of the Eiger than anyone ever has. Right now, he is practicing one of those sports -- speed riding -- on a nearby mountain slope with his friend and cameraman Valentin Delluc.


To speed ride JT is using skis, but also he’s attached to a glider-like parachute called a speed wing. It allows him to soar over rocks and ledges impossible to ski.




JT Holmes: You’re capable of transitioning in and out of flight at will.


Anderson Cooper: So you’re both skiing and then you’re flying. And then you’re skiing a little bit more.


JT Holmes: Exactly.


But speed riding will only take JT so far down the Eiger. He’ll also ski off a cliff and then free fall the rest of the way -- all in one long, non-stop, breathtaking ride.


JT Holmes: Three sports, one run. And they’re my three favorite sports. So--


Anderson Cooper: These are the three things you love?


JT Holmes: Yeah. These are three of the things that I love.


JT needs perfect conditions for this dangerous descent, and so far, he hasn’t been lucky. Weather on the Eiger is unpredictable.


Fierce winds whip the slopes and change direction dramatically.


JT checks the Eiger every day to see if he can finally head to the summit. The past two years he’s had to cancel plans because wind blew the snow off the top of the mountain.


Anderson Cooper: Today, the conditions are not right?


JT Holmes: Well, yeah, today you can’t even see the top of the Eiger. So first of all you couldn’t land a helicopter up there.


Anderson Cooper: How long have you been planning this?


JT Holmes: You know, the first kinda thoughts of it were upwards of six years ago, but really focused on it for three.


Anderson Cooper: Why has it taken so long?


JT Holmes: You’d be putting your life, you know, in unnecessary risk. So I need the right day.


JT is well aware of the risk. He started out as a professional skier. The steeper the slope, the better.


Now at 36 he makes a living through endorsements and filming his remarkable feats. When we first met him seven years ago in Norway, he and his daredevil friends were pioneering the use of wingsuits -- jumping off mountains and flying at more than 100 miles an hour.




But in the last several years, a number of JT’s friends and acquaintances have died in wingsuit accidents. Eiliv Ruud who was flying with JT in Norway, was killed in 2012, when he struck a cliff and fell a 1,000 feet.


JT won’t be wingsuit flying off the Eiger. The most dangerous part of his descent will be after he finishes speed riding -- when he tries to jettison his skis and freefall down the rest of the mountain. To practice he makes base jumps without skis off a tiny, slippery piece of rock he calls “the mushroom.”




jettison: 
to throw things away, especially from a moving plane or ship






JT Holmes: I stepped off the helicopter onto the mushroom and that was fine, I had a good grip. But then I took another step and there was this really thin ice layer. It feels a little more uneven than I remember it.


Anderson Cooper: He’s off.


He falls for about 20 seconds, accelerating to 110 miles an hour before opening his parachute.


Anderson Cooper: He’s starting right toward us parachute is white, he is red.


Anderson Cooper: That was amazing. How was it?


JT Holmes: Scary.


When JT jumps off the cliff on the Eiger he’ll have his skis on, and properly releasing them is critical.


Anderson Cooper: What’s the danger if you can’t get the skis off?


JT Holmes: You’re at risk of an unstable parachute deployment or a snag.


Anderson Cooper: So the biggest danger is that the ski is gonna get tangled up in the parachute?


JT Holmes: That’s the risk.


That risk was foremost in his mind because of what happened to his best friend Shane McConkey. In 2007, JT and Shane started skiing off mountains, dropping their skis, and then flying away in wingsuits. It was a dangerous combination they found thrilling.


[Shane McConkey: Oh yeah, another wingsuit ski base. Here we go.]


But on this jump In Italy in 2009, Shane McConkey’s ski release mechanism jammed. He couldn’t get his skis to come off. He crashed into the ground at high speed, and was killed instantly.


Anderson Cooper: That’s how he died. His skis didn’t come off?


JT Holmes: He couldn’t get his skis off, struggled in his wing suit, and crashed.


When JT is training at the Eiger, he wears a T-shirt with a funny picture of Shane on it. Without his old friend there to help him, he has turned to new friends. Martin Schurmann, is an experienced Swiss mountain guide.

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