Reinhold Messner

[xjoex]

25 Years ago today Messner was the first person to summit Everest without oxygen. But that is not all, he did it in style without attacking the mountain "siege" style like they do these days.

Badass of the Week: Reinhold Messner



-Joe

[Saab2000]

He is not badass of the week. He's badass all the time.

[RickM]

Don't forget Peter Habeler. Equally Badass.

[RickM]

25 Years ago today Messner was the first person to summit Everest without oxygen. But that is not all, he did it in style without attacking the mountain "siege" style like they do these days.

Badass of the Week: Reinhold Messner



-Joe

Siege style is actually pretty old-skool and yes, still practiced by the likes of the Japanese and Rich-Person-Accident-Waiting-To-Happen teams.

[72gmc]

I used to want to climb Everest. Now that it's crawling with fools and their guides it has all the romance of going to the mall on a weekend.

[Dave]

Reinhold was amazing, no doubt. Pioneer if you will. I liked him best in Seven with Morgan Freeman.

My all time badass has to be Ed Viesturs.

Guy has been up everything more then once. He clinches it for me. Pretty humble as well.

[vertical_doug]

I'm more of a fan of Yvon Chouinard, Royal Robbins, Tom Frost and all the other dirt bags that passed along Camp 4 in Yosemite.

I also like Chouinard's take on paying $80K for the big-time expedition to climb Everest. You're an asshole when you get there, you're an asshole when you leave with none of the transformative experience.

[jitahs]

Chouinard is also the passionate environmentalist, now a quaint epithet, who founded Patagonia on principles of natural resource stewardship.

So much of what started out as a deep appreciation for the natural world, documented by the likes of Galen Rowell, has become a backdrop for individual accomplishment. The amount of shit left on Everest and the expectation a sherpa wearing donated shoes and no O2 is supposed to save your sorry ass when things get fubared...well it's just a mirror of what we do off the mountain.

[RickM]

I'm more of a fan of Yvon Chouinard, Royal Robbins, Tom Frost and all the other dirt bags that passed along Camp 4 in Yosemite.

I also like Chouinard's take on paying $80K for the big-time expedition to climb Everest. You're an asshole when you get there, you're an asshole when you leave with none of the transformative experience.

I was associated with GPIW for awhile many many years ago. YC gets not enough recognition IMHO for what I think was his strength; Ice.

[xjoex]

I like Patagonia quite a bit. For a company of their size they stay very close to the original ideals.

I never got in to big wall climbing... I tried but it's not for me. I really wanted to get in to it but apparently I am a pussy.

-Joe

[RickM]

I like Patagonia quite a bit. For a company of their size they stay very close to the original ideals.

I never got in to big wall climbing... I tried but it's not for me. I really wanted to get in to it but apparently I am a pussy.

-Joe

That don't make you a pussy at all. Now if you were wimping out on a top-roped 5.4, one *might* think you a bit pussyish,(kidding) but climbing is not not for everyone...like most things. I instructed at OB for awhile and boy did I HATE HATE HATE when parents would send their kids to a course thinking that clinging to the side of a cliff would somehow give them "character". Eff that. Theres a million ways to develop character and real life is full enough of having to do things you don't want to do without sticking some poor kid in a postion that left to their own devices they'd never go near.

[vertical_doug]

You haven't lived until you've experienced sewing machine leg.

I like Patagonia quite a bit. For a company of their size they stay very close to the original ideals.

I never got in to big wall climbing... I tried but it's not for me. I really wanted to get in to it but apparently I am a pussy.

-Joe

[Dave]

That don't make you a pussy at all. Now if you were wimping out on a top-roped 5.4, one *might* think you a bit pussyish,(kidding) but climbing is not not for everyone...like most things. I instructed at OB for awhile and boy did I HATE HATE HATE when parents would send their kids to a course thinking that clinging to the side of a cliff would somehow give them "character". Eff that. Theres a million ways to develop character and real life is full enough of having to do things you don't want to do without sticking some poor kid in a postion that left to their own devices they'd never go near.

Man, that is perfect. I too spent my career before teaching in the same sort of capacity. Not with OB, but teaching climbing and other outdoor pursuits. More with hard core gang kids, but none the less.

I loved to climb, took a decent fall on a lead and it shook me up. Stuck with gyms and top rope for awhile. Don't climb at all anymore...miss a lot of it though. Working with my 7 year old on some skilss, but mostly just there to belay and encourage.

[Saab2000]

A buddy of mine is a climber and has some cool stories. He turned me onto written accounts of climbing and it is indeed a fascinating world. When I lived in Switzerland I once saw a live TV event of two climbers climbing the north face of the Eiger. They had a camera and did some commentary and there were other cameras focusing on them as well. Today with small cameras it would be possible to have even better coverage of such an event.

Question for the climbers here: Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary get credit for having summited Everest before anyone else. Are there credible accounts that others did it before them? Locals of that area?

Climbing seems like a fascinating undertaking and I don't think I'd have the stones to do it. Challenging hike up the Matterhorn or Kilimanjaro perhaps, but hanging from ropes on a vertical wall or walking across a ladder 'bridge' over a hundreds feet deep glacial crevasse? I don't think so...

Here's a nice pic of the Eiger for the climbers here, taken during another job during another lifetime.

[Ben]

I'm more of a fan of Yvon Chouinard, Royal Robbins, Tom Frost and all the other dirt bags that passed along Camp 4 in Yosemite.

I can't fathom doing what any of the climbers mentioned here have done, but these guys take the cake for me. Totally off the map, and making up the equipment and techniques as they went. There's a reason they're called the Stove Leg Cracks - the guys were stymied by those pitches until they sawed the legs of an old wood stove and hammered them in. That's totally bananas in my book.

Or guys like Fred Beckey. The very thought of a wooden piton makes my palms sweat.

[RickM]

It's funny how everything is a tradeoff. Climbing, along with my stellar wingshooting and flycasting skills, (that's a JOKE, son!) is/was one of the few activities I could even truly boast about a little bit...but I read so many accounts here of guys my age, (late 50's..even older) who are well and truly fast on the bike..something I always wished I could be, but am not. I can hold on to some shreds of dignity in a truly fast group ride...but I never was and never will be a serious player on one. How do those guys do it????

[nrs5000]

Question for the climbers here: Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary get credit for having summited Everest before anyone else. Are there credible accounts that others did it before them? Locals of that area?

There is the whole Mallory/Irvine saga. Pretty unlikely they made it, and there is the point that success includes returning alive. The local Tibetans or Sherpas are unlikely to have had leisure, inclination or equipment to go up there until European expeditions showed up.

[vertical_doug]

There is the whole Mallory/Irvine saga. Pretty unlikely they made it, and there is the point that success includes returning alive. The local Tibetans or Sherpas are unlikely to have had leisure, inclination or equipment to go up there until European expeditions showed up.

That's why so many of the climbing community like to quote Lionel Terray's book 'Conquistadors of the Useless'. A lot of this stuff is fairly useless.

Anker and NatGeo did the film 'Wildest Dream' about Mallory/Irving on Everest. It is fascinating to watch.

[ericpmoss]

I can't fathom doing what any of the climbers mentioned here have done, but these guys take the cake for me. Totally off the map, and making up the equipment and techniques as they went. There's a reason they're called the Stove Leg Cracks - the guys were stymied by those pitches until they sawed the legs of an old wood stove and hammered them in. That's totally bananas in my book.

Or guys like Fred Beckey. The very thought of a wooden piton makes my palms sweat.

Here's an inspirational tribute to Fred Beckey:

I'm feeling pretty pathetic after watching it.

[andys]

Me too. Very inspiring.

Here's an inspirational tribute to Fred Beckey:

I'm feeling pretty pathetic after watching it.