The EIGER · Wall of Death

BBC explores a history of one of the world’s most challenging mountains, the Eiger, and its infamous North Face. The film gets to the heart of one of Europe’s most notorious peaks, exploring its character and its impact on the people who climb it and live in its awesome shadow. ---Sam Wollaston Review--- Mountains don’t get much better than the Eiger with its legendary north face, a near vertical mile of rock and ice, haunted by savage winds and the ghosts of dead climbers. “Every ledge of the Eiger is covered in the sediment of history,“ says the mountaineer Stephen Venables, who is unusually forthcoming for a climber and has a lovely way with words. He was good on the the BBC’s live rock climb in the Outer Hebrides last weekend (five hours of nail-biting drama). More than 60 people have died attempting the Eiger’s north face. Most agonising was the death of the German Toni Kurz in 1936. Kurz had already seen his three companions perish around him: he’d had