The Deadliest Rockface in the World: The Murder Wall of Eiger

Point a telescope at the north face of the Eiger from the valley below and you can watch climbers die. Not hypothetically. People have done exactly that, every decade, since the 1930s. The wall they're watching is 1,800 meters (5,900 feet) of crumbling limestone and ice, north-facing and nearly vertical, the largest and most dangerous rock face in the Alps. Nothing about it is stable, the rock sheds, the ice shifts, and the weather closes in without warning. The Swiss press named it the Mordwand—the Murder Wall. Not climbers. Journalists. They gave it that name after the bodies started coming down, and after seasons where the bodies didn't come down at all and just stayed up there, frozen into the rock, visible through the same lenses the tourists were using. Over 60 people have died on this face. Most were experienced alpinists. The question isn't why people attempt it. The question is why it keeps taking the best ones, the people who trained for years, who knew every section by name, who had already survived it before and what that pattern tells you about the wall they thought they understood. Make sure to subscribe for weekly videos!