> Every time I imagine climbing the Eiger in hobnail books, my palms sweat.
My guess is that they were using Tricouni [1] nails in their boots, by all accounts they work well over a different range of conditions to a rubber sole and crampon combination.
"K2: Triumph and Tragedy" by Jim Curran is an excellent book about the 1986 disaster.
I can also highly recommend the recent film "Broad Peak" directed by Leszek Dawid about the Polish mountaineer Maciej Berbeka.