Great north faces of the Alps

List

The six great north faces are (sorted by the date of the first ascent of the north face):

• Matterhorn, first ascent in August 1931;
• Cima Grande di Lavaredo, first ascent in 1933;
• Petit Dru, first ascent in 1935;
• Piz Badile, first ascent July 1937;
• Eiger, first ascent in July 1938;
• Grandes Jorasses, first ascent in August 1938.

Trilogy{{anchor|the Trilogy}}

Three of the six great north faces — the Eiger, the Matterhorn, and the Grandes Jorasses – are considered by climbers to be much harder to climb and are known as 'the Trilogy' (or the "North Face trilogy").

Milestones and records

• Riccardo Cassin and Liugi "Gino" Esposito made the first ascent of two of the faces (the Piz Baile and the Grandes Jorasses) on both occasions they climbed in a rope of three, accompanied by a third climber.

• The first climber to have ascended all six north faces was Gaston Rébuffat, a French alpinist and mountain guide, who chronicled his feat in his 1954 work, Etoiles et Tempêtes (Starlight and Storm).

• The first climber to ascend all six north faces in a single year was the Austrian , from the summer of 1961 to the summer of 1962. In 1993 Alison Hargreaves became the first woman to achieve this feat, with a combined time of less than 24 hours.

• Ivano Ghirardini was the first person to climb the "Trilogy" in winter, solo (1977–78), and Catherine Destivelle was the first woman (1992-93-94) to complete the solo winter trilogy.

• With the introduction of the concept of enchainment, the next challenge was to climb all three faces in one outing, a race eventually won by Tomo Česen in 1986 at the age of 26, although nobody witnessed his feat; after that , who achieved the feat between 11–12 March 1987 in a time of 24 hours.

• From December 2014 to March 2015, during a project known as "Starlight and Storms", Tom Ballard, the son of Alison Hargreaves, climbed these six north faces solo, being the first person to complete this feat in a single winter season without a support team. A film chronicling this project, Tom, won several awards at international film festivals.

• On 15 August 2021, with his ascent of the Petit Dru in 1 hour 43 minutes, the Swiss climber Dani Arnold completed a ten-year project to make the fastest solo speed climb of all six faces. He had previously set speed records on the other five faces, with Ueli Steck's 2015 solo of the Eiger north face the only current faster ascent (when Arnold climbed the Eiger north face in 2011 in two hours and 28 minutes it was the fastest at that date).

Gallery

File:North face.jpg|The north face of the Eiger File:GrandesJorasses.jpg|The north faces of the Grandes Jorasses File:Matterhorn from Domhütte - 2.jpg|The north face of the Matterhorn File:Badile.jpg|The north-east face of Piz Badile File:Les Drus - North face.jpg|The north face of the Petit Dru File:Cima grande.JPG|The north face of Cima Grande di Lavaredo

Bibliography

• Anker, Daniel (ed.) (2000) Eiger: The Vertical Arena. Seattle: The Mountaineers.
• Hargreaves, Alison (1995). A Hard Day's Summer: Six Classic North Faces Solo. London: Hodder & Stoughton.
• Rébuffat, Gaston (1999). Starlight and Storm: The Conquest of the Great North Faces of the Alps. New York: Modern Library.
• Destivelle, Catherine (2003). Ascensions, Arthaud (French) ()
• Destivelle, Catherine (2015). Rock Queen, Hayloft Publishing Ltd ()

References

References

1. Cassin. (1981). "50 Years of Alpinism". Diadem.
2. (13 August 2018). "Dani Arnold climbs the Cassin route up Grandes Jorasses in 2 hours and 4 minutes".
3. Rébuffat, Gaston. (1999). "Starlight and Storm: The Conquest of the Great North Faces of the Alps". Modern Library.
4. Hargreaves. (1995). "A Hard Days Summer - Six Classic North Faces Solo". Coronet.
5. Destivelle, Catherine. (2003). "Ascensions". Arthaud.
6. Twight, Mark. (2001). "Kiss Or Kill: Confessions of a Serial Climber". Mountaineering Books.
7. Sawer, Patrick. (26 February 2016). "Tom Ballard conquers the Alps 20 years after his mother's death on K2". The Telegraph.
8. (14 January 2016). ""Tom": il film sull'alpinista Ballard conquista i film festival internazionali della montagna".
9. Elena Golatelli. "Tom".
10. (29 September 2021). "Dani Arnold Completes Speed Solos of all Six Great North Faces of the Alps". Climbing.com.
11. Douglas, Ed. (17 June 2021). "Speed Soloing Is Climbing’s Deadliest Game—It Has One Living Player".