Scenes from the Making of Metanoia

Below is a video showing the making of the movie in a few key locations on the Eiger.
We're finishing up the filming here. It's been a great couple weeks of one days being the Eiger and the next sport climbing down in Interlacken. The final days have been perfect weather. Tomorrow Josh is going to solo the Heckmair route while the Cineflex camera documents it.

The filming continues on The Eiger Nordwand

We had a fun day Friday. Loranze fixed ropes for Josh and myself as we all descended down from the West Face to recover the pack Jeff Lowe left twenty years ago. The pack was almost completely buried. Josh spent over two hours digging the pack out. It was way more work than we expected and the pack was much heavier than imagined. Originally we thought Josh would put the pack on and climb out. Upon digging the pack we realized that wouldn't happen. The pack weighed over 80 pounds. His sleeping bag must have filled with water and ice and the entire 80 litre pack was a giant ice cube. Needless to say we had to haul the pack 200 metres up the face. That alone was adventure enough for me.

But No...The scene we had to capture was Josh lifting the 80 pound pack into the helicopter. Jeff left his pack below on route because a storm was rolling in and he had to get off the mountain by helicopter before the storm fully arrived. I'm not sure if we captured the exact scene of Jeff stepping onto the heli because as you can see in the video below it was pretty sketchy. After filming this adventure I thought to myself, "Shit....I have to get on the heli the same way" We all made it safely and had the weekend off for sport climbing in Lehn. Gotta love Switzerland!

Stay tuned for more adventures from the Swiss Alps

Filming on The Eiger

Things are going great here. We've had fantastic weather for the last 5 days. We have one more day of blue bird and we're planning to fly to the summit and do a few more scenes tomorrow. The last three days have been spent on the face around the Hinterstoisser. We've been re-creating scenes in the exact location from the route Jeff Lowe climbed back in 1991. The route looks super crazy. I can't image climbing this thing in the winter by yourself.

We were filming Josh Wharton dry tooling some of the pitches and the roof pitch Josh says is around M9. It's not the easiest line up the wall that's for sure. Here's a few more production stills and a short video for you to enjoy.

Filming in Switzerland

There's a group of us including Jeff Lowe, Greg Lowe, Josh Wharton, Dave Black and myself currently in Switzerland filming on the North Face of the Eiger. Jeff is producing a movie titled "Jeff Lowe's Metanoia." Metanoia is a greek word meaning a fundamental change of thinking: a transformative change of heart.

In the winter of 1991 Jeff spent 9 days by himself climbing a new route on the North Face of the Eiger.

As Jeff climbed, every choice was tested by his purist ethic. No partner, no help from ropes left by others, no bolts - in mid-winter. Alone and increasingly at risk, climbing among ghosts and relics, and hammered by storms, he slowly transcended the recent chaos that had commandeered his life.

Near the top, out of food, pinned in a shallow limestone cave, and faced with yet another storm, Jeff heard a strange song. It lasted much of the day, and seemed to come from within the mountain. Next morning he emerged from his grotto and continued up. Barely surviving a fall that he actually jumped into, he finished the climb but disregarded the summit just 300 feet distant and 100 feet higher. Instead he accepted a helicopter descent rather than chance an avalanche and incoming storm, while climbing down the west side.

We are here now to re-enact some key scenes of this story. View his webpage here. www.jefflowemovie.com Check out the pictures below as we set up fixed ropes on the North Face to film some of the scenes.

Strong winds made it nearly impossible to be lifted off the summit. A bivy on the summit would not have been fun without a sleeping bag or tent.

Our Bivy on the summit of the Eiger. Yes, it's really that cold

Lorenz about to be lifted from the summit. You really have to trust those helicopter pilots. One mistake and it's Adiós baby!!

Our studio in Grindelwald

The Eiger as seen from Kleine Scheidegg