Siebe Vanhee teams up Tommy Caldwell to send Eiger Odyssee in a day

On Tuesday 30 July Siebe Vanhee, supported Tommy Caldwell, succeeded in making a one-day ascent of Odyssee on the North Face of the Eiger. Boasting difficulties up to 8a+, this 33-pitch outing completed in 2015 by Roger Schaeli, Simon Gietl and Robert Jasper is believed to be the most difficult big wall free-climb on the Mordwand.

Vanhee reported: "A few months ago, Tommy contacted me to partner up, this summer for some climbing around Europe. We would be meeting each other for a few days to work on some product development for our mutual sponsor, Edelrid. After our meeting, Tommy and I joined Sébastien Berthe and Dörte Pietron on some amazing routes on Schwartze Wand in Höllental, Germany. Then, we were eager for more and something bigger. I had never climbed on the Eiger and neither had Tommy. The weather seemed to be solid. We had some doubts about the dryness of the wall after a particularly wet spring, but to our surprise the wall looked as dry as it ever would be.

Our route of choice was very obvious, Odyssee (8a+, 33 pitches, 1400m)! This is the biggest and hardest rock route on the North Face of the Eiger. The route had seen two ‘one day’ ascents in 2020. By Nicolas Favresse and Sébastien Berthe, and by Jacopo Larcher and Barbara Zangerl. This was an inspiration for Tommy and myself to do the same, make a free ascent in one single day. I was very intimidated though, both teams told me about how difficult the route finding is and about how even the ‘easier’ 7th grade pitches are very engaging and sometimes runout. We knew Babsi and Jacopo tried the route before and Seb and Nico had done it at the end of the season when holds where already marked by chalk. Route-finding now, after the wet spring would be a whole lot more challenging.

On Tuesday 30th of July we started at the base of the climb at 3:30 in the morning. Rock, paper scissors decided for Tommy to start. The obvious goal was to swing leads and to both free-climb every pitch. Tommy already indicated that he hadn’t climbed much on his European trip and wasn’t in the best shape, but he would give it all.

From pitch 8, the first pitch graded 7c/8a, Tommy decided to go into support-mode and help me send the route. We decided that from that point onwards, I would go upfront and try to onsight as many of the hard pitches as possible to make a proper free ascent. Except for the cruxpitch, pitch 10 (8a+), we decided that it would be smarter that Tommy would flash me through this one. He went up first, marked the holds and gave me a mighty flash. I cruised up the pitch thanks to his help! From then on, I could feel it was game on.

Climbing was slow, beta finding was hard but I made it without any falls until pitch 20 (7c) where I got lost too many times. It was a 45 minute fight trying to send this pitch and not make any falls. Unfortunately, I fell just below the last draw and took a solid 15 meter whipper. Dizzy and weak from the effort, I pulled back up, checked the moves, lowered down and sent the pitch on my second go.

We continued, climbing through the next, endless-looking pitches until we arrived at the base of pitch 28 (7c) and 29 (8a). Seb had warned us about these ones, that they would be the sending cruxes of Odyssee. I had fallen already in pitch 20 so the no fall ascent wasn’t possible anymore. I worked the moves of both pitches and sent them both on my second try. The last 4 pitches, only graded 6a/b, took us another three hours. The rock was loose and, at that point, my brain was fried from 18.5 hours of focus on the hard climbing. It was dark and protection was hard to find. Sleep deprivation started to kick in and simply staying awake at the belays became a challenge. At 1 am, after a total of 21.5 hours climbing we had climbed Odyssee in a day!

Tommy had been such an amazing partner, positive and optimistic about the possibility I could send this climb. I have rarely felt such a good partnership with someone I barely know. Not only did he support me all the way, he was simply happy and enjoying himself in this suffer fest, trying to free as much as possible. I’m happy with the performance, but even more thankful for the experience and partnership with Tommy. I also like to thank Roger Schäli, Simon Wahli and Jonas Schild for all their practical info on logistics and the route."