Over the 29th-30th August, Ueli Steck, partnered by Stefan Siegrist, free climbed Paciencia, creating what the Swiss pair feel to be the most difficult alpine sport route on the North Face of the Eiger.

Although exact details are currently unavailable but will be updated in due course, the route was equipped, and completed with some aid/rest points, by Siegrist and Steck during 2003. Early that same summer the pair had made the long-awaited redpoint ascent of La Vida es Silbar (Life is to Whistle), a direct line through the Rote Fluh above the Stollenloch.

Paciencia appears to take similar ground, climbing through the vertical to impending walls of the Rote Fluh close to the 1969 Japanese Direttissima (Hirofumi/Imai/Kato/Kato/Kubo/Negishi: ED3), and then continuing up the front face of the Czechoslovak Pillar, between the 1976 Czechoslovak Route (Kysikova/Plachetsky/Rybika/Smid: c1,300m: originally VI+ and A4), which climbs the left flank and left arête, and La Vida es Silbar to the right. The exit point onto the West Ridge is about one and a half hours below the summit.

Climbed from the Stollenloch, the tunnel window below the Rote Fluh, the 900m Paciencia (patience) has 27 pitches; one is 8a, two are 7c+ and most of the remainder varies between 7a and 7b+. Apparently, Siegrist and Steck have been trying to redpoint this route since 2003 and it looked like this summer's unstable weather (with snowfall arriving in mid August) would once again thwart their plans. However, their patience and persistence were finally rewarded and the two report alternating leads during the ascent with Steck getting all the hard pitches. Steck was able to climb every pitch free but Siegrist fell while seconding some of the more difficult sections.

La Vida es Silbar, started by Daniel Anker and Siegrist in 1998, and eventually redpointed by Siegrist and Steck in 2003, climbs through the highest part of the Rote Fluh and then towards the right side of the Czechoslovak Pillar above. It too has 27 pitches, with two pitches of 7c, and at the time was the most continuously difficult technical rock climb on the Eiger. In 2006 Robert Jasper freed the slightly shorter Yeti to the right at 7c/7c+, but this recent ascent appears to have brought a new dimension to the compact limestone on the right side of the most famous North Face in the Alps

This report was compiled with help from Patricia Bamert from Ueli Steck's Office

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