In the eyes of his fans around the world, the South Tyrolean mountaineering legend Reinhold Messner (79) remains, of course, the person who was the first to climb all 14 eight thousand and, what’s more, without the use of artificial oxygen. .
After the controversial revocation of the title by the creators of the Guinness Book, the North American climber who is said to be the new record holder after the new measurement of the eight thousand meter peaks has also now spoken out. E: He also supports Messner and describes him as the true record holder.
Edmund “Ed” Viesturs (64), himself a legend among high-altitude mountaineers who, for example, reached the summit of Mount Everest seven times, now says: “I am firmly convinced that Reinhold Messner was the first person to climb all 14 “I believe that Messner and the others did their best to climb the real peaks of these mountains, as far as they knew how and under the conditions they found on the spot.”
According to new calculations, the organizers of the Guinness Book awarded the title in the new edition to Viesturs, who reached the last eight thousand missing in 2005 with Annapurna. According to this interpretation, Reinhold Messner and his partner Hans Kammerlander would not have actually been on the summit of Annapurna in 1985, but would have turned 65 meters and five meters before arrival.
Messner himself initially dismissed this as uninteresting and completely unimportant, but eventually became angry. Then he told the Munich Merkur that, of course, he was on the summit of Annapurna. And this angers him because “99.9% of everyone involved in this story has no idea about mountaineering and summits. No one can imagine the dimensions up there!”
Viesturs says of Messner: “He was a pioneer, not just stylistically, but also physically and psychologically, in climbing without additional oxygen. Other mountaineers, like me, were inspired by him to follow in his footsteps.”