Reinhold Messner climbed Everest without bottled oxygen when doctors said it was impossible
In 1978 Reinhold Messner and Peter Habeler stood on the summit of Everest breathing only the thin air around them, something several doctors and climbers had declared beyond human limits. Two years later Messner went back alone. By 1986 the South Tyrolean had climbed all fourteen peaks above 8,000 metres, none with supplementary oxygen.
Messner was born on 17 September 1944 in St. Peter in the Villnöß valley, a German-speaking corner of northern Italy, the second of nine children; his sister recalled that he arrived during an air raid. His strict father, a teacher, took him up his first summit at five. From 13 he climbed with his younger brother Günther, and by their early twenties the pair ranked among Europe's finest. Between 1960 and 1964 Reinhold led more than 500 ascents, mostly in the Dolomites, and put up bold new lines such as a direct route on the Ortler's north face in 1965.
Inspired by Hermann Buhl, he preached alpine style in the Himalayas: minimal gear and little outside help. Big expeditions with fixed ropes and porters, which he mocked as siege tactics, struck him as disrespectful to mountains. His Everest pledge was to climb it by fair means or not at all.
The turning point came on Nanga Parbat in 1970. Both brothers reached the top of the unclimbed Rupal face, but Günther died two days later coming down the Diamir side, and frostbite cost Reinhold seven toes. Critics blamed him for taking his less experienced brother so far. He returned to climb the Diamir face solo in 1978, the same year as the oxygen-free Everest ascent; his 1980 solo from the Tibetan side, in monsoon season, was the first anyone had made alone.
Beyond the big peaks he climbed Denali's Face of the Midnight Sun and Kilimanjaro's Breach Wall, and on 3 December 1986 topped Mount Vinson to finish the Seven Summits. On foot he crossed Antarctica via the South Pole with Arved Fuchs, then Greenland, and in 2004 walked 2,000 kilometres through the Gobi. He has written more than 80 books, sat in the European Parliament for the Greens from 1999 to 2004, founded the Messner Mountain Museum in 2006 and was among the first to inspect the Ötzi mummy after its discovery.
Source: Reinhold Messner
