The talented alpine rock climber, Giovanni Quirici, was recently killed in a fall on the North Face of the Eiger.
Although exact details have not been forthcoming, the Geneva-based Swiss alpinist was leading a pitch on Le Chant du Cygne (Swan Song), Michel Piola's last of five new routes on the North Face.
Started in 1991 and completed with Daniel Anker in 1992, Le Chant du Cygne (900m: ED2/3: 7a, 6b+ obl) takes the true crest of the prominent rock pillar on the right side of the wall avoided by the quasi-classic Geneva Pillar (aka Porte de Chaos: Hopfgartner/Piola, 1979: 900m: 6a and A2).
The first 15 pitches are sustained 5+/6a on good rock, but the next five form the crux, with the first three giving 6b+ to 6c+ climbing on rather dubious limestone. There are bolts in place but, in the main, protection relies on natural gear.
It appears that 33-year-old Quirici took a big fall and died more or less instantly. His partner was rescued unharmed.
The technicalities of the route would have been nothing for a man who was a former Swiss junior climbing champion, subsequently a member of the national competition team, and in 2010, made the first continuous free ascent, in a day, of the 330m Yeah Man (8b+, 7b obl) in Switzerland's Gastlosen Range.
The demanding Yeah Man on the North Face of Gran Pfad (c2,100m) was opened from above in 1998, after three years' work, by local guides Guy Schaller and Francois Studemann. However, they freed less than the first half of this nine-pitch route, guessing the crux to be 8c.
All the pitches were freed in 2004 by the well-known Spanish team of Josune Bereziartu and Rikar Otegi, but they were unable to link them for a continuous ascent. Pitch grades were assessed at 7a, 7b+, 7b+, 7c, 8a, 8a+, 8a, 8b+, 7a, making it one of the hardest multi-pitch climbs in the World.
In 2007 Quirici was part of a team that set about trying to complete and then free a hard route on Madagascar's Tasaranoro walls, which would be given the name Tough Enough (10 pitches: 8b+). Although they were the first to complete the route to the top, it wasn't until the following year that Arnaud Petit's French team managed to redpoint all the pitches.
In 2005 Quirici had accompanied Didier Berthod to Norway's 'little big wall' of Blamman, both climbers making the first free ascent of Arctandria (450m: 8a+).
Quirici made his mark in the Greater Ranges. In 2007 he made a 'quiet' ascent of a 650m rock route in Ladakh on superb grey limestone (Samsara is Nirvana, 7b obl), while in 2009 he, Nina Caprez and Stefan Siegrist, managed to free all pitches of the Timofeev Route (now 7b+, 7b obl) on the North West Face of Asan (4,230m) in Kyrgyzstan's celebrated Karavshin region.
However, one of his greatest achievements in the mountains came in 2006, when he was part of a three-man Swiss team that came close to freeing the West Pillar of Trango Tower (Dedale/Fauquet/Piola/Schaffter, 1987: 1,100m: VI 6c A4).
This demanding route involves considerable amounts of hard aid climbing, confirmed on subsequent, unsuccessful, attempts. After a lot of work the Swiss reached the summit for the second ascent, having free climbed all but three pitches of A3. They estimated the crux would go at 8a.
His last mountain exploit took place in May this year, when with Elie Chevieux he climbed a 700m rock wall (19 pitches: 7b) in the Indian Kinnaur, culminating at an altitude of 4,650m.
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