BIG INTERVIEW
1975 Gasherbrum I (8,080m)
The beginning of alpine style in the Himalaya: a fast and light ascent with Peter Habeler.
R The author chats to Reinhold.
he tells me with enthusiasm. “From his views, from his abilities, from his keenness – he was so keen.” Mummery disappeared during a futuristic attempt – in 1895 – on the same Diamir Face of Nanga Parbat that Guenther Messner was to perish on 75 years later. So as well as a line on a mountain face, the Mummerys and the Messners share a grave. Messner perceives other affinities with the British and is keen
to talk them up, mentioning Joe Tasker and Joe Brown (“One of the most important climbers of the 1950s and 60s”) and Alison Hargreaves (“She was outside of the gender discussion because she did everything men could do”). His own 1980 Everest solo took a line so close to Colonel Norton’s 1924 oxygenless near ascent that it can be read as a tribute. He also sees himself, proudly, as something of a spiv (“I call myself a freelance adventurer, I sell what I can sell”) and is sometimes maligned for it. In this respect he resembles another British mountaineer.
“I think that Chris Bonnington and myself had a similar approach to it. And Bonnington was very successful, also economically, but he was financing, working his connections. The British expeditions, all of them, the famous ones – Everest South Face, Annapurna
1978 Everest (8,848m), Nanga Parbat (8,125m)
Makes the first ascent of Everest without supplementary oxygen with Peter Habeler, and then climbs a new route on the Diamir Face of Nanga Parbat: the first solo ascent of 8,000m peak.
I CALL MYSELF A FREELANCE ADVENTURER, I SELL WHAT I CAN SELL
South Face – without Bonnington, British mountaineers would not have been so successful in the last 50 years.” But what is it that makes the British so successful in the hills? After all, we have no Alps. Messner thinks it’s to do with our industrial past, about the way we Brits could view landscape and people as potentially subservient, as something to conquer – and tell good stories about later over dinner.
“Mountaineering is a cultural issue, it’s not just a sporting issue.
You came very early to the Alps. You had a lot of experience with colonies. You had the first industries, and maybe an open mind. In continental Europe, we needed the French Revolution to open our minds. With the French Revolution and industrial revolution, mountaineering was born.”
I suggest to Messner his own brand of extreme mountaineering, as opposed to pure rock climbing, is done rather on the quiet these days, and that Adam Ondra’s latest intense cave clip up seems to
48 | CLIMB. WALK. JOIN. 1979 K2 (8,611m)
A small expedition, which led to a partially alpine-style ascent via the Abruzzi Spur.
1980 Mount Everest (8,848m) His second trip to the top of the world, again without supplementary oxygen.
PHOTO: YUKI YAMAMOTO.
8,000M QUEST
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