Laura Dahlmeier dies while climbing Swiss professional mountaineer: "You never get used to deaths like this"

The death of Laura Dahlmeier shakes the mountain sports scene. Swiss professional alpinist Stephan Siegrist talks about the residual risk on the mountain, climate change and the growing number of recreational climbers.

The death of Laura Dahlmeier has once again made the general public aware of the risks of mountaineering. There is always danger on the mountain.

Stephan Siegrist, extreme mountaineer and one of the few Swiss professionals who are known beyond the scene, knows this too.

In his career to date, the 52-year-old from Bern has already achieved first ascents on all seven continents, climbed the great north faces of the Alps and completed expeditions in northern India and Nepal, North America and Antarctica, South Africa and Patagonia.

Siegrist has climbed the north face of the Eiger more than 40 times. blue News spoke to him about the dangers on the mountain.

Stephan Siegrist, what did it do to you when you heard about Laura Dahlmeier's death?

It's another death of a strong female mountaineer. That always makes you sad, of course. I didn't know Laura personally, but I heard a lot about her from Thomas Huber, who was involved in the rescue mission. Such accidents are always tragic, especially when they affect such young people.

There are always fatalities in extreme mountaineering. Do you get used to colleagues having serious accidents?

You never get used to it. But I'm certainly more calm than I used to be, because unfortunately such incidents happen all the time. At times like that, you're grateful that it never happened to you. Because many misfortunes are not self-inflicted. The causes often lie in objective dangers that are difficult or impossible to assess.

Are the dangers of mountaineering controllable?

In nature, we always have a residual risk that we cannot control and where fate ultimately decides whether we survive or not. Of course, there are precautionary measures that can be taken and that Laura Dahlmeier and her rope partner have certainly taken.

What do these precautionary measures look like? Can you protect yourself from a rockfall?

The temperature is crucial for rockfalls. You can climb at a time of day when the risk is low due to the warming during the day - for example at night. The choice of route is also a factor - in other words, it's slightly safer on a ridge than on a rock face.

And you can climb on a mountain where you can hope that the rock is compact. But that is often difficult. In the Himalayas, for example, you climb almost exclusively on granite. You have to imagine it like slabs glued together. If the base of a glacier starts to fail here, rock can quickly break off.

However, I don't know in detail what the conditions were like in Laura Dahlmeier's case. But you can never rule out the risk of falling rocks 100 percent anyway.

The permafrost is thawing worldwide - including in the Swiss Alps. This increases the risk of rockfalls. How do you perceive this development?

It is true that we are now very aware of this development in the Alps. On my last expedition, when we were in the Himalayas, we also experienced first-hand how hundreds of cubic meters of rock were suddenly missing compared to our last expedition a year earlier. This underlines the fact that this is a global development.

To what extent does this affect your activities on the mountain?

Ultimately, we humans always have to adapt to nature. For example, in the last two years I have moved my snow summit tours forward to June. Before that, they took place in July or August. The reason for this is the snowmelt, which can occur earlier and earlier.

Another example is the north face of the Eiger: we used to climb there in June and then took a break until September. Climbing was possible again from September. Now the window of time in which you can climb reasonably safe from falling rocks and ice has narrowed considerably. Today, the north face can be climbed from November to April - in other words, during the winter months.

Access to mountaineering is also becoming increasingly low-threshold for many hobby climbers - thanks to more financial opportunities, for example. Do you see a danger that a healthy respect for the mountain could be lost?

That is difficult to assess. Basically, more people in the mountains also means more dangers. For example, the rope team in front of you can trigger rocks. In the past, the scree might still have been under snow or ice and the rope teams in front would not have been able to trigger a rockfall.

I think there are a lot of people who can assess both themselves and the terrain well. But as the number of people on the mountain increases, so does the number of people who are less good at this.

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