THE ASCENT
Prologue
When ice climbing, the last thing you want to hear shouted is the word “ROCK!” Unfortunately, this is precisely the last word Paul Sibley would hear before witnessing his good friend struck by a dislodged boulder. What had begun as a monumental day, summiting one of the pre-eminent ice climbs in Chamonix, had taken a turn for the worse, for which there would be no return.
“For me, it’s all about being outside, being in nature”
Climbers Paul Sibley and Michael Weis had been climbing the better part of their lives. Some consider them to be the early pioneers of ice-climbing in the States. “For me, it’s all about being outside, being in nature,” Paul says during a sit-down interview. “We had been practicing our ice-climbing technique on waterfalls here in Colorado. We [American ice-climbers] had a technique that was unique to the States. Our time spent out on large frozen waterfalls gave us an edge over the European climbers at that time in the ‘70s.” This competitive edge Sibley describes would turn out to be dreadfully obvious.
In the summer months of the early 1970s, July 16th of 1972, to be precise, two American climbers from the Rocky Mountains set out to climb one of Europe’s famous mountain ranges: The Mont Blanc massif. Sibley and Weis left for Chamonix, France mid-July with 80 lbs of gear each. This gear would see them to the summit of the Aiguille de Triolet. This summit, nestled in a ridge of mountains known as the Mont Blanc Massif, is considered by the climbing community to be one of the pre-eminent ice climbs in the world. Its peak straddles the French and Italian borders, with the north face on the French side and the south face on the Italian. Geographically, it is a dramatic peak; visually, it is awe-inspiring. The Aiguille de Triolet stands proud, with spires and rock walls covered in snow and ice. Surrounded by ancient glaciers, one begins to understand the permanence mountains represent. The Aiguille de Triolet’s sister peak, the famed Mont Blanc, is Europe’s tallest mountain, rising well above 15,000 ft. These impressive, intimidating mountains are a challenge for only the most skilled mountaineers.
The Ascent Begins
Around 4 in the morning, Sibley and Weis reached the north face of the Aiguille de Triolet. Feeling comfortable free-soloing, they started the climb off without ropes and safety equipment. Free-solo climbing is a term that describes a style of climbing in which no ropes are used. This style of climbing allows for a much faster ascent, as well as little margin for error.
The choice to “rope up” would prove to be a wise decision
After climbing approximately 900 ft. up the north face, the sun began to rise. With only the perspective morning light can bring, the climbers could now appreciate the totality of their undertaking. With the morning light, Sibley and Weis realized how far they had climbed. “I looked down and thought to myself, oh shit man, that’s a long drop,” Sibley explained. “I yelled out to Mike at that point and told him we better rope-up.” The choice to “rope up” would prove to be a wise decision. “When you start screwing ice screws into an ice wall for rope anchors, you have to be certain that they will support you if you fall,” Sibley explains. “It’s also important you place your anchors close enough together so that if you fall, you won’t fall so far that you pop-out an anchor.” Thus began the second stage of their climb. They continued up the north face carefully and deliberately, making sure not to make life-threatening mistakes. The summit became closer with each new anchor set, and for a brief period, all was well.
The Party of Germans
Having been on the mountain for nearly three and a half hours, Sibley and Weis discovered a state of flow. Their progress up the steep ice wall was consistent with what they had planned; everything was working as it should. At 7 A.M., that all changed. Beneath them, a party of two German ice climbers emerged from the ice and fog. These two Germans were climbing at a much faster pace than Sibley and Weis. Because of their pace and comfort level, they began to attempt to pass Sibley and Weis up the wall. “I couldn’t believe they wanted to pass us up the wall,” Sibley said. “We were on a pretty narrow portion of the climb, and we could tell they did not have the same level of competence we did.” Sibley continues, “To be completely frank, I could tell they didn’t know what they were doing, and I didn’t want them climbing above me.” At approximately 8 A.M., the German party passes Sibley and Weis off to the far right. “The moment was tense; I could tell they were ascending too quickly.”
“It looked like someone shot him out of a canon”
In ice climbing, it is essential to have total trust in your gear. To have confidence in equipment means understanding how to use it and applying techniques safely to protect yourself and your climbing partner. Alas, the passing German party did not apply the same level of intent, and at 8:30 that morning, the lead German climber fell from the ice wall. When a climber falls, the weight of the fall is felt by his ice anchors. If the anchors do not hold, then your climbing partner will take the brunt of the fall. As the lead climber fell, he popped each of his anchors, and inevitably pulled his climbing partner off of the wall with him. They fell nearly 2,300 ft to the glacier below. One of the climbers dies upon impact. The other miraculously survived his fall. “What had happened was, the lead climber had overstuffed his crampons with snow and ice. Because of this, he couldn’t get purchase on the ice wall and lost his footing.” Sibley says. “When I watch the climber beneath him get pulled off the wall, it looked like someone shot him out of a canon. He had no hope in supporting the weight of his partner’s fall.” That miscalculation cost one man his life. Because Sibley and Weis had begun their ascent free-solo, they had no way to repel down. Their only course of action was to continue up the mountain. This was, after all, the early 1970s. There were no cell-phones then. If they were to get help, their only choice was to summit the mountain and repel down the Italian southern side. The south side of the Aiguille de Triolet is on the Italian border and has a far easier path of descent. This plan would remain the same for the rest of the climb. However, only one climber would summit.
Murphy’s Law
“Out of nowhere, I hear Weis shout the word ROCK!”
In short, Murphy’s law states that whatever might go wrong, will. Not 30 minutes after the German party suffered their devastating fall, tragedy would again befall Sibley and Weis as they made their ascent. At approximately 9 A.M. that morning, Weis spotted a few small boulders dislodge and start to fall towards them. “Out of nowhere, I hear Weis shout the word ROCK!” Sibley says. “Well, knowing from my time on mountains, in situations like that, you need to get as flat to the wall as possible. So that’s what I do. I spread my legs and arms out as wide as I could, and I hugged the mountain.” Sibley continues: “So I look down, and I see that Mike gets struck by one of the rocks, it hits him in the calf, and it looks fucked up. What happened was a rock hit him in the calf so hard that without tearing the skin- it ripped the calf muscle off of his bone and pushed the muscle into the bottom of his leg. He passed out immediately.” Upon confirming this account with other sources, Wies suffered a freak accident. A falling rock had struck Weis’s leg in such a way as not to damage the skin, and through brute trauma, rip the calf muscle from the bone and lodge it near his ankle. The injury rendered him incapable of completing the climb. Moreover, it left Sibley without a climbing partner. The climb was not going to plan.
The Ascent Continues
Sibley had to think fast, the party had suffered two significant catastrophes before the halfway point to the summit. How was he to finish the climb without a climbing partner? How should he go about finding help for his climbing partner as well as the surviving German climber? Moments after Weis regained consciousness, Sibley yelled down to him: “Can you pull with your hands and push with your other foot?” Weis responded: “Let’s find out.” So began the slow, arduous journey up the mountain. Sibley essentially pulled Weis 500 ft up the mountain until they reached the ledge of a cliff wall large enough for a helicopter to extract Weis.
“I could hear the German climber painfully crying out for help”
With each push and pull, Weis would pass out from pain and exhaustion. It took them over three hours to reach the suitable ledge. Sibley described this portion of the climb as grueling and disturbing. “With everything that had happened, I was pretty mentally scrambled. I could also hear the screams and wails of the German that had survived his fall. Every few minutes or so, in between Mike passing out, I could hear the German climber painfully crying our for help. He had to have been at least 5,000 feet below us at that point. It’s a haunting memory.” Despite the circumstances, Sibley and Weis reach the ledge at approximately 11:30 A.M. Sibley then gives Weis the largest parka from his backpack. He then had no other choice than to complete the climb independently.
One Mountain, One Man
Despite the odds- Sibley makes summit by noon. Under different circumstances, this would have been a moment for celebration. Sibley and Weis had planned this moment for months. Now, alone, atop one of the grandest peaks in Europe, Sibley contemplated his next steps. He knew that time was of the essence. He also knew that if he did not find help before nightfall, it would mean Weis would have to spend that night on the mountain. Helicopters do not do rescue flights at night. “I realized pretty quickly I needed to change the route. I knew that if I repelled into the Italian side, I might have an easier time reaching the valley floor before 3 P.M.” Sibley explained. “I also knew that even though it was faster to get down the mountain on the Italian side, finding a phone that could reach the French side of the mountain would be difficult. But, at that moment, all I focused on was getting off the mountain and finding help before sunset.”
Knowing that the path of least resistance leads him towards the south-facing slope, he sets off on his descent route. This route will require a mix of techniques, including technical climbing, repelling, and hiking. The first stent of the descent included several thousand-foot cliff repels. After this, there would be a glacier to navigate down. Glaciers can be deadly to navigate for those not trained on how to spot a bergschrund. A bergschrund is a crevas created between a glacier and the wall of a mountain as it slowly moves down a mountain. A bergschrund can vary in size, with some being thousands of feet deep, while others are quite shallow. A bergschrund might also be only a few feet in diameter, and hide a hole so deep a mountaineer can fall not only beneath the glacier, they fall to the mountain’s surface. Sibley would also need to be vigilant of potential avalanches as well as rock falls. After the glacier, he would have a several-mile hike down into the nearest valley. Here, Sibley hoped to find a road, and then, a person. Impressively, Sibley completes the 9,000 ft. descent in less than two hours. “I was ripping down the mountain as quickly as possible; I knew I had to find someone to call for help.” After only two hours, Sibley makes the descent from the mountain’s peak. It is at this moment he realizes how desolate the region is. Where are the roads? The cars? The people? How is he to save the men on the mountain?
One see’s great things from the valleys; only small things from the peaks
After hiking for what felt like an eternity, Sibley came across a road, and incredibly, a man out for a jog. “I spotted an Italian cross-country runner and approached him as quickly as I could,” Sibley recounts. “At this point, I was looking pretty beaten-up. I had just come off of what would be the quickest descent of my life, and I had banged up my body in the process. The runner was at first a little taken back by my appearance.” Thankfully, Sibley had a guidebook on him. He took this book out and on a map; circled the location on the mountain where he had left Weis. The Italian runner, realizing the importance of this information, took the map and ran as quickly as possible to his car. Sibley is exhausted; yet, at the same time, he realizes that he had done it. He had made the descent in time for the authorities in France to launch a rescue mission. Now the fate of the men on the mountain rested in the hands of a stranger, the Italian cross-country runner.
“I was ripping down the mountain as quickly as possible; I knew I had to find someone to call for help.”
During the course of reporting for this story, many attempts were made to identify the Italian runner. Sadly, he could not be identified. What was recovered however was the route the gentleman took to call for help. The unidentified runner knew a tunnel that went underneath Mont Blanc, connecting France and Italy. There would be an emergency station with a phone connected to the French side. He raced off to this emergency station and miraculously retorted the information Sibley had told him. With his knowledge and the map Sibley provided, he successfully explained to the French authorities where to find Weis on the mountain.
Just before sunset, at approximately 6:30 P.M., the French authorities mount a rescue mission via helicopter. Thankfully, the nearest hospital is only minutes away via helicopter. At approximately 8 P.M., Weis lands at a hospital. Immediately, he is taken into surgery, where they treat him for severe leg trauma. He is also dangerously cold, having spent nearly seven hours on the mountain, completely alone. As for the German, little is known. The German was not at the mountain when the rescue mission reached the Aiguille de Triolet via helicopter; moreover, Sibley and Weis would not hear from him for nearly 40 years.
EPILOGUE
“When ice-climbing, choices matter”
Micheal Weis would go on to spend 11 days in a French hospital. After 11 days, Sibley arrived at 4 A.M. with a stolen wheelchair and sneaks Weis out of the hospital. Apparently, the hospital would not let them leave until they paid the hospital bill. Both being poor, wanderlust climbers, this was not an option. They boarded a flight in Munich for the United States that afternoon. Once back in America, Weis would spend nearly a month in the Boulder Community Hospital. Weis and Sibley remain good friends to this day.
In the spring of 2014, Sibley received a letter from the surviving German cliumber. His name has been redacted from the story to protect his identity. In the letter, one gets the feeling the climber is to this day still searching for answers and meaning in the tragedy. In it, he seemingly begs for clarity in the events leading up to his fall. It is a chilling reminder of the repercussions mistakes may lead to while ice climbing. Sibley ended his interview with one statment: “When ice-climbing, choices matter.”
