Climbing-British alpinist Manners makes Eiger history after forging her own path in sport

Fay Manners had climbed the Eiger North Face before. But this summer, the British alpinist returned not to ​follow an established route, but to create one of her own.

With Swiss climbing partner Roger ​Schaeli, Manners spent 13 days on the wall establishing “Solar Eclipse,” a ‌2,952-foot (900-metre), ​33-pitch route, becoming the first British woman to open a new route on the face. Part of the Swiss Alps, the Eiger is known for its roughly 5,900-foot (1,800-metre) North Face, a wall of rock and ice exposed to extreme weather and falling rocks. A series of deadly attempts helped build ‌its reputation before a German-Austrian team made the first successful ascent in 1938.

Four years ago, Manners climbed the Heckmair Route. She said the experience prompted her to research the wall obsessively and made her want to return. Unlike repeating an established climb, where climbers know a route is possible and can consult information about its difficulty and direction, establishing a new route means finding a line through previously unclimbed terrain.

“You ‌don’t know how hard it's going to be, you don’t know the sort of protection that you'll need to put in, you really don't know if you're going to be able to ‌make it to the top,” Manners told Reuters. For Manners, the creativity behind establishing a route carries significance beyond reaching the summit in a male-dominated sport.

“If you're looking in the guidebook and every single name of the person that's opened a route is male ... somehow that's telling you that men are opening routes and women aren't,” the 39-year-old mountaineer said. “I think that having women go and do that creative process, opening new routes, putting all the hard work in ... is really important,” she ⁠said. “Representation and ​also the actual act of opening these new routes” ⁠go hand in hand.

Women have been part of the Eiger's climbing history for decades. In 1964, Daisy Voog became the first woman to successfully climb the North Face. Contemporary reports said Voog had previously sought to join a mountaineering section devoted ⁠to extreme climbing but was rejected because it admitted only men. Five years after Voog's ascent, Japanese climber Michiko Imai was the sole woman on the six-person team that established the "Japanese Summer Direttissima" route.

Manners questions the role that ​gender plays in the assumptions women can internalise about what they are capable of. “Maybe if I never grew up with someone saying to me, ‘You can't carry as much as me, ⁠so I'll carry more,’ maybe if it was just always equal from the beginning, then you just never have that doubt in your mind,” she said.

“Those doubts that we have and those stereotypes that we have, they're just so subtle that we don't ⁠even ​realise them.” FROM DATA SCIENCE TO ALPINISM

Manners' own path to professional climbing was shaped by some of those assumptions. Growing up in England, she loved sport and imagined making a career from it, but said people around her told her there was little money or future for women.

So she studied data science and followed a more conventional path. Eventually, she moved to Chamonix, France, while continuing to work ⁠as a data consultant. Outdoor brand The North Face approached her about becoming a sponsored athlete, initially allowing her to split her time between data science and climbing. About a year later, she ⁠left her data career altogether.

“I really only realised that ⁠it was possible when it was happening,” she said, “because I still had in my mind that there was no way that a female could have a career in sports.” She plans to return to her route. For Manners, the ultimate measure of what they have left behind would be seeing ‌other women benefit from it.

“I would ‌love to see all-female teams go try to repeat the route,” she said. “That would be the next ​thing for me — the dream.” (Editing by Toby Davis)