Nirmal Purja has recently drawn all attention of the word to his remarkable success. The ‘Project Possible‘ on which he summited 14 highest mountains in just six months and six days with his team. That feat was documented and streamed online by a platform, informing us of all 14 eight-thousanders and showing how hard mission it is actually. While to be in death zone, over 8000 meters, constantly means having a close brush with death, in fact, someone had done this thirty-five years ago. Moreover, without any supplementary oxygen. It was Reinhold Messner. The very first conqueror of them giants and the greatest mountaineer on earth.
Life of Reinhold Messner
Without doubt, his greatness is because of the years he had spent in South Tyrol with his brother Günther. Born in a mountainous region of Northern Italy, the duo began following the steps of a school teacher father who was himself an enthusiastic mountaineer and climber. Do you know anyone who summited a peak of 3000 meters high when they were five years old? Reinhold Messner did it. And more. Hundreds of ascents in Dolomites, a mountain range that is southern extension of the Alps, and Swiss Alps mostly accompanied by Günther in the following two decades. Till they decided to meet a challenge set by an Austrian mountaineer Hermann Buhl.
At University of Padua, he studied architectural engineering and continued climbing not only the Alps but also the Peruvian Andes while in his 20s. Even though Reinhold and his brother became the best climbers of Europe, their minds were actually on another contest. The Himalayas. Herman Buhl who had climbed Nanga Parbat in alpine style and declared in his book that the southern face of the mountain, ‘the Rupal’, could never be climbed by anyone triggered them to beat that sheer wall of rock and ice. In 1970, they joined a German team that had been trying to get over that 15000 feet wall for 40 days.
Becoming the first to complete all 14 eight-thousanders
Due to the traditional climbing practice, i.e. alpinism, they pursued rather than mountaineering known as expedition style, Reinhold and Günther were the only ones who saw the summit among the group. However, unfortunately, they were both not be able to return. On the way back, Günther disappeared in an avalanche and Reinhold got lost while searching his brother. He was rescued several days later, yet in terrible condition. That challenge cost him seven toes and a brother.
After that tragedy, he didn’t quit. He just chose to move on, pushing hard and going all in. Having sought another challenges around the world with his new climbing mate Peter Habeler whom he had met in the Peruvian Andes, he decided to go back to the Himalayas. First he summited Manaslu in 1972, then he returned to Nanga Parbat hoping to find Günther’s body. Forced back by avalanches and weather, he failed. Günther’s remains were to find 35 years later after an unusual heat wave on the mountain that revealed the body.
Three years later, Messner and Habeler were heading Gasherbrum I to be the first conquerors of the mountain without bottled oxygen. In 1978, the same success they achieved on Everest.
1979 – K2
1981 – Shishapangma
1982 – Kangchenjunga, Gasherbrum II, Broad Peak
1983 – Cho Oyu
1985 – Annapurna, Dhaulagiri
1986 – Makalu, Lhotse
and Messner made history becoming the first one to complete all 14 thousanders. It took him 16 years to achieve, starting from Nanga Parbat in 1970 to Lhotse in 1986.
The king of the mountains
16 years also includes many other remarks most of which were to be subjects of his books he wrote, such as the first solo ascent of Everest without oxygen during the hazardous monsoon season. That adventure in ‘The Crystal Horizon’ or whole 14 most majestic mountains on earth in ‘All Fourteen 8000ers’. In addition to the books he published, there was a television series he filmed. It about spiritual traditions associated with the world’s mountains. Wohnungen der Götter, ‘Homes of the Gods’.
Crowned as the king of the 8000-meter, he never called it a day. He crossed the entire continent of Antarctica, Greenland and Gobi Desert on foot and always kept contributing to nature and the mountaineering world. Even in a political way being elected as Member of the European Parliament for the Federation of the Greens. And lastly, the legend opened the Messner Mountain Museum in 2006, which has six facilities at different locations dedicated to show the real beauty of Earth’s highest places.
Reinhold Messner is not only the greatest high-altitude mountaineer the world has ever known; he is probably the best it will ever know.
TIME
More about the king of mountains, visit his official website and Instagram account.
