Reinhold Messner (1a)

Reinhold Messner (born 17 September 1944) is a mountaineer, adventurer, explorer,

and author from the Italian autonomous province of South Tyrol, "whose astonishing feats on
Everest and on peaks throughout the world have earned him the status of the greatest climber in
history."
[1]

He is renowned for making the first solo ascent of Mount Everest without supplemental oxygen and
for being the first climber to ascend all fourteen "eight-thousanders" (peaks over 8,000 metres
(26,000 ft) above sea level). He is the author of at least 63 books (in German, 19702006), many of
which have been translated into other languages.

Biography[edit]
Born in Brixen (Bressanone), Italy, Messner is a native speaker of German and Italian, and also
fluent in English.
[2]
He grew up in Villn and spent his early years climbing in theAlps and fell in love
with the Dolomites. His father, Josef Messner, was a teacher. He was also very strict and sometimes
severe with Reinhold. Josef led Reinhold to his first summit at the age of five. Reinhold had eight
brothers and one sister; he later climbed with his brother Gnther and made Arctic crossings with his
brother Hubert.
When Reinhold was 13, he began climbing with his brother Gnther, age 11. By the time Reinhold
and Gnther were in their early twenties, they were among Europe's best climbers.
[3]

Since the 1960s, Messner, inspired by Hermann Buhl, was one of the first and most enthusiastic
supporters of alpine style mountaineering in the Himalayas, which consisted of climbing with very
light equipment and a minimum of external help. Messner considered the usual expedition
style ("siege tactics") disrespectful toward nature and mountains.
Messner's first major Himalayan climb in 1970, the unclimbed Rupal face of Nanga Parbat, turned
out to be a tragic success. Both he and his brother Gnther reached the summit, but Gnther died
two days later on the descent of the Diamir face. Reinhold lost six toes, which had become badly
frostbitten during the climb and required amputation.
[3]
Reinhold was severely criticized for persisting
on this climb with less experienced Gnther.
[4]
The 2010 movie Nanga Parbat by Joseph Vilsmaier is
based on his account of the events.
[5]

While Messner and Peter Habeler were noted for fast ascents in the Alps of the Eiger North Wall,
standard route (10 hours) and Les Droites (8 hours), his 1975 Gasherbrum I first ascent of a new
route took three days. This was unheard of at the time.
In the 1970s, Messner championed the cause for ascending Mount Everest without supplementary
oxygen, saying that he would do it "by fair means" or not at all.
[6]
In 1978, he reached the summit of
Everest with Habeler.
[6]
This was the first time anyone had been that high without bottled oxygen and
Messner and Habeler proved what certain doctors, specialists, and mountaineers thought
impossible. He repeated the feat, without Habeler, from the Tibetan side in 1980, during the
monsoon season. This was Everest's first solo summit.
In 1978, he made a solo ascent of the Diamir face of Nanga Parbat. In 1986, Messner became the
first to complete all fourteeneight-thousanders (peaks over 8,000 metres above sea
level).
[7]
Messner has crossed Antarctica on skis, together with fellow explorer Arved Fuchs. He has
written over 60 books
[8]
about his experiences, a quarter of which have been translated. He was
featured in the 1984 film The Dark Glow of the Mountains by Werner Herzog.
Messner today carries on a diversified business related to his mountaineering skills. From 1999 to
2004, he held political office as a Member of the European Parliament for the Italian Green Party
(Federazione dei Verdi). He was also among the founders of Mountain Wilderness, an
international NGO dedicated to the protection of mountains worldwide.
In 2004 he completed a 2,000-kilometre (1,200 mi) expedition through the Gobi desert. He now
mainly devotes himself to theMessner Mountain Museum, of which he is the founder.

Jerzy Kukuczka

Eight-thousanders[edit]
Kukuczka is widely considered among the climbing community to be one of the best high-altitude
climbers in history. He ascended all fourteen mountains in just under eight years, a shorter time than
any climber before (Reinhold Messner included, whom it took 16 years) or since. In the process,
Kukuczka established ten new routes and climbed four summits in winter. He was one of an elite
group of Polish Himalayan mountaineers who specialized in winter ascents. He established 9 new
routes on the eight-thousanders, 4 of which were winter routes (compared to 6 new routes of
Messner's, none of them during winter).
Year Location Mountain Route Comments
1979 Nepal Lhotse West Face Normal Route
1980 Nepal Mount Everest South Pillar New Route
1981 Nepal Makalu
Variation to Makalu
La/North-West Ridge
New Route, Alpine Style, Solo.
1982 Pakistan Broad Peak West Spur Normal Route, Alpine Style.
1983 Pakistan Gasherbrum II South-East Spur New Route, Alpine Style.
1983 Pakistan Gasherbrum I South-West Face New Route, Alpine Style.
1984 Pakistan Broad Peak
Traverse of North, Middle
and Main Summits
New Route, Alpine Style.
1985 Nepal Dhaulagiri North-East Spur
Normal Route, First Winter
Ascent.
[1]

1985 Nepal Cho Oyu South-East Pillar
New Route, First Winter Ascent,
Second Summit Team.
1985 Pakistan Nanga Parbat South-East Pillar New Route.
1986 Nepal Kanchenjunga South-West Face
Normal Route, First Winter
Ascent.
1986 Pakistan K2 South Face New Route.
1986 Nepal Manaslu North-East Face New Route, Alpine Style.
1987 Nepal Annapurna I North Face
Normal Route, First Winter
Ascent.
1987 China Shisha Pangma West Ridge
New Route, Alpine Style, Ski
Descent.
1988 Nepal
Annapurna East
Summit
South Face New Route, Alpine Style.
He climbed all summits except for Mount Everest without use of supplemental oxygen.
Kukuczka died attempting to climb the unclimbed South Face of Lhotse in Nepal on 24 October
1989. Leading a pitch at an altitude of about 8,200 meters on a 6 mm secondhand rope he had
picked up in a market in Kathmandu (according to Ryszard Pawowski, Kukuczka's climbing partner
on the tragic day, the main single rope used by the team was too jammed to be used and the
climbers decided to use transport rope instead), the cord either was cut or snapped from a fall,
plunging Kukuczka to his death.