Reinhold Messner

Italian mountain climber

• Born: September 17, 1944
• Place of Birth: Bressanone, Italy

Widely regarded as the first person to climb all fourteen mountains in the world higher than 8,000 meters (26,246 feet), Reinhold Messner revolutionized mountaineering by advocating a climbing style that relied on minimal equipment and by his refusal to use bottled oxygen at high altitudes. He also served in the European Parliament and published many books about his adventures.

Early Life

Reinhold Messner (RIN-hohlt MEHS-nur), the son of Josef Messner (a schoolteacher) and Maria Troi, was born on September 17, 1944, in Brixen, in the South Tyrol, a mountainous region in northern Italy. Always fascinated by mountains, Messner accompanied his parents and younger brother, Günther, on the ascent of a 10,000-foot peak at the age of five. Although Messner worked on the family chicken farm and attended public school, he spent his free time honing his mountaineering skills. At age fourteen he finished a difficult solo climb after his father refused to continue, a decision that evidenced Messner’s growing confidence in his abilities. By age twenty, he had made approximately five hundred climbs, excelling in both rock climbing and ice climbing. He later looked back at this period as the most exciting in his life.

In the mid-1960s, influenced by mountaineer Hermann Buhl, Messner turned to some of the great climbs in the Alps, including the infamous Eiger in Switzerland. He made the first solo ascent of the north wall of Les Droites, considered to be one of the most difficult Alpine rock faces. Word of his exploits spread among members of the climbing community, and Messner’s reputation as a mountaineer grew. In 1969, he made his first climb outside Europe, reaching the summit of the 21,709-foot Yerupaja Grande in the Peruvian Andes on a nighttime ascent. In 1970, he received an invitation to join a Himalayan expedition committed to climbing the 26,660-foot Nanga Parbat by way of the unclimbed Rupal face, a massive wall over 14,000 feet high. To prepare, Messner abandoned his studies in civil engineering, took a job as a schoolteacher, and engaged in a strenuous training program in his free time.

Life’s Work

Messner’s first Himalayan experience was a triumph followed quickly by tragedy. Messner and his brother Günther scaled the Rupal face and reached the summit of Nanga Parbat. Ill with altitude sickness and exhausted from the climb, Günther feared that he could not climb down the Rupal face. The brothers then completed an amazing feat by crossing Nanga Parbat to descend on an easier but unfamiliar route. During the descent, however, they were separated. Reinhold searched but could not find his brother, who in all likelihood had been swept to his death in an avalanche. Günther Messner was presumed dead (his body was recovered thirty-five years later on the Diamir Face in June 2005, following an extended heat wave). Reinhold arrived at base camp six days later, his toes so severely frostbitten that several had to be amputated.

The Nanga Parbat expedition established a pattern that Messner would repeat again and again during his career. On one hand, he received praise for his successful and daring climb. However, critics charged that Messner’s thirst for glory led him to take unnecessary risks and ignore his own safety and that of his fellow climbers. For his part, Messner claimed that his experiences on Nanga Parbat strengthened him, improved his judgment of mountaineering hazards, and provided him with a greater appreciation of life. After the expedition, Messner turned to mountaineering full-time and financed his climbs through articles, books, and public lectures.

In 1971, Messner traveled the world and completed climbs in such places as Europe, Africa, and New Zealand. Tragedy and controversy struck again in 1972 on Manaslu, a 26,760-foot peak in Nepal. Messner’s partner, who could no longer climb, urged Messner to continue to the summit alone. His partner and two other team members were caught in a blizzard in which two climbers died. Messner reached the summit, but again found his success marred by contentions that he should have remained with his fellow climbers.

In 1968, Messner had argued that while the use of artificial climbing aids such as pitons (metal pegs hammered into rock) allowed mountaineers to scale peaks and rock faces once believed unclimbable, the overuse of these aids diminished their achievements. He challenged his peers to reach summits using only the minimal equipment necessary. He expanded on his climbing philosophy in his book The Seventh Grade: Most Extreme Climbing (1973), in which he argued that alpine-style climbing (small teams of skilled climbers carrying minimal equipment) could achieve the same successes on the world’s highest mountains that huge expeditions hauling tons of equipment had achieved. Critics regarded Messner’s claim that he and a gifted partner could climb high peaks without major expedition support as evidence of his arrogance and foolhardiness.

Messner set out to prove his contentions, teaming up with Peter Habeler, an outstanding climber from the South Tyrol. In 1974, the two climbed the north face of the Eiger, a wall that most teams complete in several days, in a mere ten hours, an accomplishment that astounded the climbing world. Messner, however, had his sights set on greater climbs. The following year, avalanches thwarted his attempt to summit Lhotse, a 27,890-foot mountain in Nepal, but later that year he and Habeler climbed the 26,470-foot Gasherbrum I (also known as Hidden Peak) in Pakistan with just over two hundred pounds of climbing gear. The Hidden Peak ascent confirmed Messner’s argument regarding the ability of small teams to scale major peaks and secured his place as a mountaineering pioneer.

Messner now prepared to go one step further and challenge a long-standing belief among mountaineers regarding the use of bottled oxygen. Having summited Hidden Peak without the use of bottled oxygen, he announced his intention to scale Mount Everest, the world’s tallest peak at 29,028 feet, also without supplemental oxygen. Skeptics argued that the limited oxygen available at such an extreme altitude was insufficient for human needs. Anyone attempting to climb Everest without bottled oxygen would surely die.

Undaunted by the criticism, Messner and Habeler accompanied the Austrian Everest Expedition to the Everest base camp in March 1978. Expedition members spent the next several weeks preparing a series of camps high on the mountain. On April 21, Messner and Habeler made their first summit attempt, reaching Camp III two days later with the assistance of porters. When food poisoning felled Habeler the following morning, Messner went ahead with two Sherpa climbers, but winds reaching 125 miles per hour turned the climbers back. The entire party returned to the base camp, where Messner and Habeler agreed to try one more time before abandoning the project. On May 6 they set forth from the base camp and reached Camp IV at 26,200 feet on the afternoon of May 7. On the early morning of May 8, they made their final push, reaching the summit after eight hours of arduous climbing. Messner was stricken with snow blindness on the descent, but both climbers safely reached the base camp on May 10 after climbing the world’s highest peak without using oxygen and, in the process, revolutionizing high-altitude mountaineering.

Not content to rest at this point in his career, Messner completed a solo ascent of Nanga Parbat by way of a new route only months after his Everest triumph. The following year, he and a small party climbed 28,251-foot K2, the second highest mountain in the world and regarded by many climbers to be far more difficult and dangerous than Everest. In response to detractors who pointed out that Messner had relied on assistance from climbers using oxygen during the Everest climb, Messner soloed the mountain in three days without oxygen in 1980. In 1982, he climbed Kangchenjunga, Gasherbrum II (which he considers his greatest achievement in the Himalayas), and Broad Peak. With these successes, Messner had climbed nine of the fourteen peaks over 8,000 meters (26,246 feet) high. Messner achieved the goal of climbing all fourteen in 1986, when he summited Lhotse, the fourth-highest mountain in the world, with partner Hans Kammerlander.

After climbing Lhotse, Messner declared that he would no longer climb into the “death zone,” the heights above 8,000 meters at which the human body can survive only for short periods. However, he had not abandoned his commitment to mountaineering. He hoped to be the first person to climb all of the so-called Seven Summits, the highest mountain on each of the world’s seven continents. With the ascent of the 16,067-foot Mount Vinson in Antarctica in December 1986, he reached his seventh summit, but another climber had beaten him to the record by two months. Eager for new challenges, Messner used his visit to Antarctica to plan another adventure: a crossing of the southernmost continent.

After three years of preparation, Messner and his partner, Arved Fuchs, set out from the Ronne Ice Shelf on November 19, 1989. Committed to a “fair means” crossing, the two adventurers did not use mechanized sleds or dogs to carry their gear. Each pulled a forty-eight-pound sled containing camping equipment, cooking gear, and supplies. On windy days, they used kite sails to help with the hauling. Committed to preserving the environment, Messner and Fuchs carried out all their trash. However, they did receive supplies twice during the journey, once from an airplane and once at the research station at the South Pole. They successfully completed their journey in ninety-two days.

Messner’s exploits made him a renowned adventurer and a best-selling author in Europe. However, his fame came at a cost. His marriage to Ursula Demeter ended in 1977, in part because of the stress that his frequent mountaineering placed on the relationship. Following a 1978 Everest climb, Messner and Habeler parted ways because of differences in their published accounts of the event. Messner had a similar public dispute with Fuchs after the Antarctic traverse. He earned a reputation for arrogance and tactlessness. Some people argued that his personality changed because of brain damage brought on by oxygen deprivation, while others claimed that Messner found his popularity too stressful. Messner dismissed stories about his personality as media fabrications.

Messner claimed to have spotted a yeti in 1986 during a trip to the Himalayas. He has said he saw this abominable snowman twice. The first time it was a mere glimpse of a shadow; the second time he approached to within seventy feet and found that what the Sherpas called a yeti was actually the Tibetan brown bear, very dangerous but not a “yeti” in any sense. He wrote in his book about the experience, My Quest for the Yeti (2000), that the behavior of this nocturnal bear accords perfectly with the myth of the yeti.

During the 1990s, Messner mounted a failed solo expedition to the North Pole. In 1996, he returned to Gasherbrum I, which he had first climbed over twenty years earlier, but he left when he encountered a large number of climbers at the base camp. Although he declared that he would always seek adventure, Messner admitted in 1995 that parenthood (he had two daughters) made him more willing to remain at his home, the renovated Castle Juval in South Tyrol, where he had been growing an ecologically benign garden to feed his family.

Still, Messner continued to climb. In 2000 he returned to Nanga Parbat to climb it on the thirtieth anniversary of his first assent, this time by an untried route. Climbing with his brother Hubert and two others, he had to turn back when at high altitude the route proved too dangerous. In the summer of 2004, Messner walked across the Gobi Desert in China and Mongolia, a trek of 1,200 miles from east to west, in six weeks.

From 1999 to 2004, Messner served as a member of the European Parliament for the Federazione dei Verdi (Italian Green Party). He campaigned on the contention that all efforts to make society ecologically responsible must begin at once and be independent of ideology. Messner wrote some sixty books about his explorations and numerous articles for periodicals, including Star, Mirror, Geo, Epoca, and National Geographic. These literary works brought him several awards, including the ITAS literary award (1975), the Donauland Sachbuchpreis (1995), and the Bambi Lifetime Award, Germany’s prestigious media prize (2000). He also wrote or produced several documentary films and was featured, with climbing partner Kammerlander, in the television documentary The Dark Glow of the Mountains (1984, directed by Werner Herzog).

Finding that when he reached age sixty he was no longer capable of extreme mountaineering, Messner devised a way to make his experience educational. He founded the Messner Mountain Museum, which opened in 2008. The museum, a five-building complex each with separate themes that highlight various aspects of mountaineering, was located in the South Tyrol. Messner continued to garner honors for his many accomplishments, including the Piolet d'Or Livetime Achievement Award for mountaineering in 2010 and Spain's Princess of Asturias Award in 2018.

In 2019, some researchers began to compile evidence that many historic summit records in the Himalayas were technically inaccurate. They eventually alleged that on Annapurna, Manaslu, and Dhaulagiri in particular, climbers often unknowingly missed the true topographical summit. Messner's climb of Annapurna was among those thrown in doubt, and in 2023, the Guinness Book of World Records officially removed his name as the first person to summit all fourteen 8,000-meter peaks. The decision proved highly controversial in the mountaineering community, and Messner himself dismissed suggestions that his achievement might not count.

Significance

Messner forever changed high-altitude mountaineering. His success with alpine-style climbing on 8,000-meter peaks led to increased criticism of large expeditions as costly, environmentally damaging, and lacking in grace and style. However, because alpine climbing allowed for no margin of error, it increased the risks mountaineers took on high peaks. Climbers who do not possess Messner’s skill and judgment face great danger when they apply his philosophy on their attempts to scale the world’s highest mountains.

Dynamic, controversial, and opinionated, Messner has left a lasting impression on the sport of climbing. Many commentators hailed him as the greatest mountain climber of all time. While others disagreed, there is no doubt that his expeditions without supplemental oxygen changed mountaineering.

Messner has four children and has been married three times. In 2021, he married Diane Schumacher.

Bibliography

Alexander, Caroline. “Murdering the Impossible.” National Geographic. National Geographic Society, Nov. 2006. Web. 19 Dec. 2013.

Bonington, Chris. The Climbers: A History of Mountaineering. London: BBC, 1992. Print.

Connolly, Kate. "Nanga Parbat Film Restarts Row over Messner Brothers' Fatal Climb." The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 19 Jan. 2010. Web. 19 Dec. 2013.

Heil, Nick. "The Greatest Moments on Everest." Outside. Mariah Media Network, 24 Apr. 2012. Web. 19 Dec. 2013.

Kennedy, Tristan. "The Man Who Took on Reinhold Messner's Mountaineering Record." Outside, 29 May 2024, www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/exploration-survival/reinhold-messner-mountaineering-record/. Accessed 21 Aug. 2024.

Messner, Reinhold. Antarctica: Both Heaven and Hell. Ramsbury: Crowood, 1991. Print.

Messner, Reinhold. The Big Wall. Seattle: Mountaineers, 2001. Print.

Messner, Reinhold. Everest Expedition to the Ultimate. London: Kaye, 1979. Print.

Messner, Reinhold. The Naked Mountain. Seattle: Mountaineers, 2003. Print.

Messner, Reinhold. Interview by Johanna Stoeckl. "Reinhold Messner on Real Alpine Adventure." Outside. Mariah Media Network, 24 Feb. 2022, www.outsideonline.com/culture/books-media/reinhold-messner-real-alpine-adventure/. Accessed 21 Aug. 2024.

"Reinhold Messner: Celebrating His 80th Birthday Amid Family Tensions." Il Messaggero, 24 July 2024, www.ilmessaggero.it/en/reinhold‗messner‗celebrating‗his‗80th‗birthday‗amid‗family‗tensions-8258128.html?refresh‗ce. Accessed 21 Aug. 2024.

Rowell, Galen. In the Throne Room of the Mountain Gods. San Francisco: Sierra Club, 1986. Print.