For weeks Dad had been telephoning Kleine Scheidegg for reports on weather and snow conditions on the Eiger, and recently the answers had gone from bad to better. In dense fog on the afternoon of August 19th, he and Konrad pitched their little pup tent on a meadow beneath the wall. They built a small fire, cooked a pound of liver on skewers, and set the alarm for 11 p.m. (First paragraph of Chapter 4, The Eiger Obsession.)