The Guinness Book of Records, the book that annually collects a list of records relating to the most disparate themes, has recently stopped attributing to the South Tyrolean mountaineer Reinold Messner the first ascent of all 14 mountains above eight thousand meters in Alpine style, i.e. without using oxygen tanks. After a German journalist had discovered that Messner had most likely stopped a few meters below the summit of Annapurna, an 8,091 meter high Himalayan mountain, the Guinness Book of Records had established that he was the first person to climb to the top of that and all the other eight thousand it was the American Edmund Viesturs, who also climbed them without supplementary oxygen between 1989 and 2005.
The Guinness Book of Records decision was based on a technicality and to most people who follow mountaineering it doesn’t really make sense: there is no doubt that Messner was the first to achieve that feat, despite having stopped a few meter below the summit of Annapurna due to an error of judgment. Viesturs himself agreed with him: «I am firmly convinced that Reinhold Messner was the first to climb all 14 eight thousand peaks and that this must be recognized».
But Messner, who has always spoken out against the conception of mountaineering as a competitive discipline made up of records, said: «I didn’t want to have this record in the Guinness book and even if they gave it back to me now I don’t want it, because I feel offended by the nature of this story.”
The question was opened a few years ago when Jurgalski, a 68-year-old German who has never climbed those mountains himself, had done extensive research on available documents – photographs and notes, mainly – regarding the ascents of the Himalayan mountains in the past decades: he had discovered that many people who are credited with climbing actually stopped below the highest point of those mountains, for safety reasons (a last ridge that was too exposed to climb, for example), because in some cases it is not really clear which either, or because some of those peaks are considered sacred by the local populations. Jurgalski and others had therefore argued that a good part of the history of Himalayan mountaineering should in fact be rewritten, taking away these unfinished climbs, which he believed were unfinished for many mountaineers.
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The problem actually arises for six or seven mountains, including Shisha Pangma, whose peak is separated from another by a dangerous ridge, or Dhaulagiri and Annapurna, which end with long almost flat ridges, reachable from different slopes and where it is almost impossible to distinguish the highest point, or even Kangchenjunga and Manaslu. Jurgalski’s thesis has found some supporters, convinced that it is important to establish rigid criteria to certify whether or not a person has reached the top of a mountain, given that more and more climbers are climbing above eight thousand.
The point is that as many people understand mountaineering, the question raised is a totally irrelevant question. One meter more or less, but even twenty or fifty, don’t really matter for those who trained in a period in which attention to records and the competitive dimension of mountaineering was much less. And also for those who, although younger, are linked to a more “purist” approach to the mountains who see mountaineering as an individual discipline, of exploration of the world and of oneself. And therefore he believes that an ascent is a personal matter, rather than the demonstration of one’s abilities to others.
Messner, who was the greatest Himalayan mountaineer in history, and who in the 1970s and 1980s achieved some of the greatest mountain feats accomplished by humanity in Asia, is among these people.
When the question arose, he had calmly said that perhaps on some of the eight thousand he had not really been at the highest point. On Annapurna, which he climbed in 1986, climbing the then “unclimbed” north-west face without oxygen tanks, when he reached the top there was little to see to look for the exact point. «If they say that on Annapurna I was five meters below the summit, that’s fine with me. I don’t even try to defend myself: if someone comes and tells me that everything I’ve done is bullshit, I tell him to think what he wants.”
Viesturs, to whom Guinness attributed the new record, wrote on Instagram that he and the other climbers were inspired by Messner when they followed his example by climbing the eight thousand in Alpine style. «I believe that Messner and the others did what they could to scale these peaks to their true heights, to the best of their abilities, in the conditions they were in. I don’t think any of these climbers intended to be dishonest. Climbing mountains is a personal journey, and it shouldn’t be about being on a list or setting a record.”
Il Corriere della Sera reports the response of Messner, who thanked Viesturs by saying that «his solidarity makes me very happy, it is a virtue that characterizes the world of mountaineers». He defined the entire controversy as “a campaign against me”, adding: “Most people don’t know what it means to climb to the top of an eight thousand meter mountain and climb by rope on walls of ice and rock four kilometers high. Imagine if in the end you don’t cover the last five meters to reach your goal.”
2023-09-28 06:00:23
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