Eric Jones

Eric Jones (born 1936) is a Welsh solo climber, skydiver and BASE jumper.

He is best known for the first British solo ascent of the north face of the Eiger in 1981, and for his climbs on the Matterhorn and South Col on Mount Everest. In 1986, he became the first person to BASE jump from the Eiger.

Early life Raised on a farm near Ruthin in north Wales, he attended Derwen primary school, transferring at age 11 to Ysgol Brynhyfryd in Ruthin. As a boy he was interested in parachuting and skydiving, and later wanted to sign up with the Parachute Regiment. However, an earlier injury - a result of a motorbike accident - led to his joining the Military Police whilst on his two-year National Service.

Jones took up skydiving in 1961 and a year later, at the age of 26, began climbing. He climbed extensively in Snowdonia and the Lake District, followed by climbs in Italy. He took up solo climbing when his climbing partner became less available, and found that it gave him the freedom to move quicker, though also brought greater risks. and in 1971, he was the first person to climb the Central Pillar of Brouillard on the south ridge of Mont Blanc.

Many of his exploits, such as the Eiger ascent and the Matterhorn ascent,

Jones was filming Reinhold Messner and Peter Habeler when they made the first ascent of Everest without oxygen in 1978. He reached the South Col at 7,900m but did not continue to the summit because of concerns about frostbite.

Jones worked side by side with Sean Connery on the film Five Days One Summer, where fellow climber Paul Nunn worked as a stunt double for Connery.

Skydiving and basejumping As a skydiver, Jones jumped onto the North Pole and down the east face of Cerro Torre in Patagonia. In 1991, as a member of a four-man team, he flew two hot air balloons over Mount Everest, an exploit which gained three entries in the Guinness Book of Records. Combining jumping with his other interests, his first BASE jump was off the Eiger, the first person to do this. His jump into the Cave of Swallows in Mexico, directed by Llion Iwan, was shown in the documentary The Man Who Jumped Beneath The Earth (2003).

His self-proclaimed motto is "Life is adventure or nothing at all".

Personal life Eric Jones' cafe at Tremadog (a former filling station), viewed from Craig Bwlch y moch. He is married to Ann, and has two children. Featured in the Lifestyle section of The Independent in January 2008,

Later life Jones is regarded by many of his peers as Britain's most successful solo climber. An unassuming man, he still walks, climbs, skis and jumps, and a recent documentary by S4C screened in 2007/8 called Alpau Eric Jones saw him revisiting the Alps. He also still gives occasional lectures on his experiences, and has in the past co-presented with Dickinson.

In 2015 he published his autobiography, entitled A Life on the Edge.

In August 2019 a BBC2 documentary entitled The Last Climb: Eric Jones, recounted much of his life, and featured his dreams, aged 82, of one final solo climb, namely the Delago Tower, part of the Italian Dolomites, which he had first climbed in the 1960s.