The West Face

Magnone will be remembered as one of the greatest of alpine climbers. In 1949 he accomplished his first major climb, the Northeast Face of the Piz Badile, long regarded as one of the most arduous rock climbs in the Alps. Two years later, with Lionel Terray, he made the first ascent of Fitzroy, regarded at the time as the most difficult mountain in the world. In 1952 he achieved the first ascent of the West Face of the Dru, the subject of this book, as well as the North Face of the Eiger in the company of Hermann Buhl and Gaston Rébuffat. The ascent of the Dru was a major accomplishment.