Soon after starting the climb, Paul and the middle-aged Nicholas stop briefly for a rest and are criticized by Hein. Just before the group is to depart, Martin observes Carla praying fervently at her father's gravesite and, moved by the intensity of her devotion, decides to accompany her for part of the trip. That night, Paul tells his beautiful but disapproving wife Astrid that he is making the climb in order to 'come alive again,' but she makes no effort to understand him.

At Martin's urging, Carla puts aside her anti-Nazi sentiments and also asks Hein, a hearty young German, to go. Carla then asks English naturalist Nicholas Radcliffe, another old friend, and Paul Delambre, an alcoholic French author who has been writing a novel about the Tower, to join the group, and they both gladly accept. Despite his attraction to Carla, Martin, a former bomber pilot who has been drifting since the war, declines the invitation, stating that he has no reason to go. Carla, whose father, a world-renowned mountaineer, died while trying to reach the top of the infamous Tower, asks American Martin Ordway to make the climb. Although Carla's dear friend Andreas, a veteran mountain guide, warns her that none of the local guides wants to join her party because of what happened to her and her father years before on the Tower, Carla is undaunted. In a Swiss Alpine village, mountain climber Carla Alten, who has just arrived from Italy, organizes a climbing party, intending to scale the nearby 'White Tower' peak.

The white tower (film)