BIG INTERVIEW
“Messner is a media-savvy showman who has appeared on every talk show ever seen on European television… Initially it was a problem getting him to appear on camera as himself…. He launched into his usual media rap, and I immediately stopped the camera. “This isn’t how I want to make this film with you,” I told him.
It is hard to know exactly what to ask Reinhold Messner that he hasn’t been asked a thousand times before, to move him on from telling familiar stories, sometimes in the same form of words you’ve heard him use in other interviews, or in his books. For such a major public figure this is obviously quite natural and has the effect of making his utterances more solid, as if etched in stone. Here is a man who, perhaps not always deliberately, is in the business of consolidating his reputation. On the other hand, the most profound times during our conversation came when I suddenly caught us nattering on about rock climbing, or gossiping about the British in a way which might have seemed downright presumptuous were the great alpine mystic’s humble love for the vertical world, and his magnanimity, not so very clear at these moments. When putting his achievements into perspective it might be helpful to consider Messner’s contemporary and the preeminent figure in US climbing culture, Yvon Chouinard. Like Messner, Chouinard has a lot going on and is well-known outside of climbing circles as the billionaire founder of outdoor brand Patagonia – his destiny, perhaps, on a continent which values enterprise above all else. Messner, meanwhile, has made his name via the old world systems of book publishing and lecture circuits, historicising, eponymous museums and political influence – acts which somehow seem more European. Of course, the boy from the Dolomites has also embraced the modern American methods of publicity, film, branding and advertising, which have sustained him during the period of his vast celebrity. We can view Messner, then, as a great integrationist and one of the major cultural figures of the modern age: a performer with an instinctive appreciation of the modern world and the requirements of his audience, whatever he also did on rock and ice.
1984 Gasherbrum I (8,080m), Gasherbrum II (8,034m)
The first traverse of two 8000m peaks, without returning to basecamp, with Hans Kammerlander.
1985 Annapurna (8,091m), Dhaulagiri (8,167m)
Makes the first ascent of Annapurna’s unclaimed North-West Face and climbs Dhaulagiri, both with Hans Kammerlander.
1986 Makalu (8,485m), Lhotse (8,516m)
R Messner stands solo on top of Nanga Parbat in 1978.
Words: Ben Williams
Ben is a writer and journalist based in Staffordshire. Read more of his work at
www.portfoliopp.wordpress.com
WHO SHOULD BEN INTERVIEW NEXT? Email
summit@thebmc.co.uk with your suggestions.
52 | CLIMB. WALK. JOIN.
After succeeding on his 8,000m quest, Messner never climbed another 8,000m peak. In December 1986, he climbed Mount Vinson in Antarctica, and became the first person to have completed the Seven Summits without using supplemental oxygen on Everest. He continued to explore mountains and remote regions for 20 years, from Yeti searches in Tibet to Antarctic crossings.
Messner had tried to climb Makalu four time, finally succeeding via the normal route with Hans Kammerlander and Friedl Mutschlechner. Taking a helicopter from Makalu basecamp to Lhotse basecamp to get on the mountain before winter broke, Messner became the first person to ever climb all fourteen 8,000m peaks with his ascent of Lhotse with Hans Kammerlander.
PHOTO: REINHOLD MESSNER COLLECTION.
8,000M QUEST
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