The Extreme Sport of Ice Climbing Is at Risk of Extinction

The valley is lit with dim winter light. In the distance, faint threads of smoke rise from a village toward the snow-laden clouds. Beyond, there are whitewashed mountain peaks, snow-covered fir trees, and immense frozen waterfalls running down dark rock faces.

It’s a typical winter scene in Switzerland’s Bernese Highlands—with one exception. Climbing one of those sheer walls of ice, solo, is Swiss mountain enthusiast and ice climber Dani Arnold. It is a skillful, tough, physical endeavor—a meticulous, cyclical dance of hacking axes and kicking crampons into the ice, finding stability, and then pushing and reaching for new fastenings higher up. Over and over, Arnold attaches and detaches his limbs

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