Conquering the Ogre's Crest: Aritsune Maki and the 1921 Eiger Mittellegi Ridge

The Unconquered Knife-Edge of the Bernese Oberland

In the golden age of European alpinism, the Eiger (3,967 m)—the Ogre of the Bernese Oberland—was dreaded for its forbidding, near-vertical ramparts. While its western flank had been climbed as early as 1858, its eastern arête, known as the Mittellegi Ridge, remained an unsolved enigma.

Rising like an impossibly narrow razor blade of shattered limestone from the Mittellegi col toward the apex of the mountain, the ridge presented terrifying obstacles: overhanging rock towers, crumbling knife-edge traverses with 1,800-metre drops plunging straight down into Grindelwald, and violent downdrafts from the Eiger North Face. For four decades, the premier climbers of Britain, Germany, and Switzerland had attempted the ridge; all had turned back defeated, declaring the Mittellegi utterly unclimbable.

In 1921, a 27-year-old mountaineer from Japan arrived in Grindelwald. His name was Aritsune Maki (known affectionately as Maki Yūkō). Educated at Keio University and a master climber in the Japanese Alps, Maki had traveled to Europe to study and climb. Soft-spoken, exceptionally fit, and possessing iron nerves, Maki looked up at the Mittellegi Ridge and determined that Japanese climbing technique would solve the riddle of the Eiger.

The Dream Team of Grindelwald

Maki understood that success on the Mittellegi required total technical perfection. He approached the Grindelwald Mountain Guides Association and recruited three of the greatest alpine guides in Switzerland: Fritz Steuri, Samuel Brawand (a brilliant climber and scholar who would later become a member of the Swiss parliament), and Fritz Amatter.

Recognizing Maki’s supreme physical condition and quiet determination, the guides eagerly accepted his leadership. Together, they devised innovative techniques: long coils of high-strength hemp rope, custom steel pitons, and weighted throwing ropes designed to lasso vertical rock horns that could not be scaled by hand.

On September 9, 1921, Maki and his trio of guides ascended from the Eismeer railway station on the Jungfrau line onto the glaciers, bivouacking on a tiny rock ledge along the lower Mittellegi col under a canopy of freezing stars.

Dancing Above the Abyss

At 6:00 AM on September 10, 1921, the four men tied into two ropes and stepped onto the crest. The weather was crisp and clear, but a biting arctic wind whipped across the ridge.

The climb was relentless. The ridge was frequently so narrow that the climbers could not stand upright; they had to straddle the limestone knife-edge like a horse, one leg hanging over the 1,800-metre drop of the North Face and the other dangling over the South Face. The rock was brittle and rotten, requiring feather-light footwork to prevent lethal stonefall.

At the crux of the climb, a vertical 30-metre gendarme of yellow limestone completely barred the arête. Amatter and Brawand attempted to climb it directly, but found no holds. Thinking fast, Amatter tied a wooden block to a light cord and hurled it repeatedly until the rope caught securely over a rock spike atop the tower. Testing the anchor, Steuri and Maki hauled themselves up the free-hanging rope above the void, pulling their companions after them.

Hour after hour, the team battled fatigue, altitude, and freezing temperatures. Finally, at 7:15 PM, as the setting sun bathed the summit snows of the Jungfrau in fiery crimson, Aritsune Maki scrambled over the final summit cornice. The Mittellegi Ridge was conquered.

A Lasting Monument: The Mittellegi Hut

The news of a Japanese climber leading the first ascent of one of the Alps’ greatest unsolved ridges created a sensation across Europe and Japan. The London Times and the Swiss press hailed Maki’s achievement as a masterclass in modern mountaineering.

Yet Maki’s greatest legacy was his humility and generosity. Recognizing how perilous the approach was for future climbers, Maki donated 10,000 Swiss francs to the Grindelwald Guides Association. In 1924, using Maki’s donation, the guides constructed the Mittellegi Hut (Mittellegihütte) directly upon the narrow crest where the 1921 team had prepared for their assault.

Today, more than a century later, the Mittellegi Hut still clings to the knife-edge of the Eiger, welcoming thousands of climbers from across the globe—an everlasting testament to the skill and spirit of Aritsune Maki.