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When Tim was 13, his mother, a librarian, lent him The White Spider, Heinrich Harrer’s book on climbing the Eiger. “It was the only book she ever thought to bring home, though she didn’t know its significance. I think she may have regretted it later,” Tim said.
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He and I were now on our way to a route he established on Mount Louis in the 1980s, and named Homage to the Spider, in honour of Walter Perren: “the Spider of Zermatt.” As we hiked up the trail, clouds pressed against the lodgepole pines. “Kevin McLane asked me to describe Mount Louis once,” Tim said. “I told him: Put your hands together as if you were praying, with your thumb tucked close. Your fingers match the vertical columns of Mount Louis beautifully.” He spoke as if he were in a lecture hall, timing his words between breaths. “You don’t climb to beat your chest,”