Climbing the Eiger, 2005

The next morning we looked up and a waterfall was running in full torrent over our route as well as over the Lauper route to our left. I noticed that one of my double nine ropes had an encounter with a rock and the core was showing. We decided to head down with the plan to climb the Eiger via the Mittellegi route instead. We started rappelling at 6:00 a.m. pounding in pitons and leaving gear as we went down. We did so many raps that I lost count but managed to leave behind a good portion of my gear including all 15 pitons that we brought.