Did you know?

On July 24th (that's today!), 1938, a German-Austrian mountaineer party became the first to scale the North Face of The Eiger. The 13,020-foot summit is one of the most iconic peaks in the Swiss Alps. The North Face rises more than 6,000 feet from the Grindelwald valley below, and poses extreme risk to climbers because of the near constant avalanches and rockfall. The mountaineers were caught in a minor avalanche as they ascended a large glacier known as The Spider, but they were able to resist being swept from the face. They reached the summit in the afternoon of the third day of their climb, and barely had enough strength to descend the regular route as a blizzard set in.