natinal geografic and messner

[glassgowkiss]

up till now i thought NG was a reputable mag with some substance to it. like i said- untill now. i changed my opinion after reading article about messner. what a load of shit! greatest climber ever! give me a fucking brake. more like a great self promoter. i think the whole article was a piece of shit journalism without a shred of objectivity.

here is some names to consider:

Kurtyka/Schauer for G4 west face

Piotrowski/kukuczka for S face of K2

Fowler/Sounders for Spantik

kurtyka/Kukuczka for Broad Peak traverse (all peaks)

Alex McIntire

Pierre Beghin

Walter Bonatti

Fred (more Fa's then any mortal ever-period!)

Loretan

i am sure the list should be much longer.

[hawkeye69]

granted, all those accomplishments are awesome.

 

but is fred the only one alive still?

 

that may be something worthy of consideration....

[joblo7]

messner has done great things.just to be alone on nf will be hard to duplicate. it's not always about who climbs the hardest for them.

. how much you inspire others counts , i guess .

loretan/troillet were the coolest.

.for the masses it's all about the big 'e' .

they are all great!

maybe murdoch(fox) bought that too. its definitely slippin'

[DirtyHarry]

Polish climbers don't count.

[joblo7]

no , but they sure can climb!

[sill]

 

but is fred the only one alive still?

 

I think Bonnotti is still alive. Fowler/Saunders are still alive and climbing hard. I would add the Lafaille to the list of guys better than Messner.

Edited December 24, 2006 by sill

[catbirdseat]

Bob, National Geographic is supposed to be entertainment, not a scientific journal. You are holding it to a different standard than that to which it aspires.

 

This was first posted in October.

Edited December 24, 2006 by catbirdseat

[lI1|1!]

wasn't messner the first person to climb the 7 summits/ 8k m peaks without supplemental o2? or that was his big deal - i don't have my details straight (anybody?) anyway, certainly not the parthenon of climbing but to the uninformed it might seem like the apex. point being national geographic made their mistake when they attempted to define 'the greatest' (only m. ali can hoild that title) when really there are many great climbers who have achieved a wide variety of feats, and the climber having the most fun wins anyway.

 

don't diss national geo too soon. check this out:

 

GIANT SQUID

 

 

linky link

 

Photo in the News: Giant Squid Captured, Filmed for First Time

 

December 22, 2006—Like pulling a shadow from the darkness, researchers in Japan have captured and filmed a live giant squid—likely for the first time—shedding new light on the famously elusive creatures.

 

Tsunemi Kubodera, a scientist with Japan's National Science Museum, caught the 24-foot (7-meter) animal earlier this month near the island of Chichijima, some 600 miles (960 kilometers) southeast of Tokyo (see Japan map).

 

His team snared the animal using a line baited with small squid and shot video of the russet-colored giant as it was hauled to the surface.

 

The squid, a young female, "put up quite a fight" as the team attempted to bring it aboard, Kudobera told the Associated Press, and the animal died from injuries sustained during the capture.

 

Giant squid, the world's largest invertebrates, are thought to reach sizes up to 60 feet (18 meters), but because they live at such great ocean depths they have never been studied in the wild.

 

Kubodera has spent three years searching for the creatures, and his team scored a coup in 2004 when it used a remote underwater camera to take the first-ever photographs of a live giant squid.

 

(See a gallery of the first photos taken of a live giant squid.)

 

The capture may be a sign that giant squid are more plentiful than had been thought, Kubodera said, and the event could help open up more fruitful research into the poorly understood animal.

 

"Now that we know where to find them, we think we can be more successful at studying them in the future," he said.

 

—Blake de Pastino

[hawkeye69]

CBS, even if we did have a scientific journal do you really think that climbers could agree on who was the BEST?

 

 

in messners defense though (and I aint saying he is the greatest):

1st oxygenless everest with habeler

1st solo of 8000 meter

1st solo of everest (sans oxygen and no support)

1st to summit all 14 8000m peaks (this is a big deal)

1st alpine style ascent of 8000m (i think)

 

some of the guys you refer to are a bit later than messner. and no offense, but each guy who climbs later has learned new limits by those who went before.

 

my vote is for Beckey in North America though.

 

another thing to consider: if climbers didnt spray about what they did, well, the mountains wouldnt tell us much. but messner was quite good at spiritual spraying, fer shure...

[Jens]

I'll bite.

Just to play devil's advocate:

It was said that "Rheinhold Messner was the best rock climber on the continent of Europe at one time. Rheinhold learned to ice climb and became the best technical ice climber on the continent of europe at on time. Rheinhold then turned his sights to the highest peaks in the world." you know the rest.

Many of the ascents of the 8000m peak no one else was on the mountain an he postholed the whole way.

Also to play Devil's advocate, I'll agree with many of the nominees on your list but some of those on the list are out of their league.

[dmuja]

Regardless of his dramatics, I think most climbers would put him at or near the top of their list - specially xtreme altitude climbers. Its subjective though, everyones experience is different.

 

What he done speaks for itself - just like the Fred

 

[hawkeye69]

you also got to hand it to old messner.

 

"courage in a rucksack" was a totally classic thing for him to think up. i always thought it came in a bottle...

 

those poles, all they know is the "art of suffering". that hardly sounds like fun...

Edited December 24, 2006 by hawkeye69

[Choada_Boy]

This?:

or this?:

 

I agree with Bob that Messner's not the hardest of the hard, but he pushed the envelope for sure. People thought he and Habler would DIE without O's. When he soloed E, he left his GF in the tent, and they were the only two on that side of the mountain.

 

Having said that, the Eastern europians and Slavs were(are) SICK. The Poles especially were doing mean and nasty O-less FAs at 8000m back in the day. I guess the horrors of WW2 and it's social and economic aftermaths made the suffering of hard Alpinism seem like a luxurius vacation.

Edited December 24, 2006 by Choada_Boy

[AlpineK]

I admire Messner for what he did. I know recently folks have done even crazier shit than Messner did, but he's still due a lot of respect.

[sprocket]

Read Mountains of My Life by Bonnatti

 

Amazing climbs done long before Messner, including hard techinical routes in the Alps, winter ascents of same, hard stuff in South America and I believe first ascent of 8000M peak (Gashebraum IV?) and if not for politics he might have had the first ascent of K2 and is finally getting the credit for making that ascent possible with hauling the O2 bottles to the high camp for the summit team. Finished his career with a winter solo of the N. Face of the Matterhorn in 1964 and promptly retired and went into journalism. Still living.

 

Messner is without doubt one of the greatest but his ego and self-promotion is a bit hard to take.

[glassgowkiss]

my thing is:

#1 NG sunk down to the low level of journalism, one step above National Enquirer.wonder why the article did not present some other facts from the era? messner was just a part of this whole group of people. he has his place in history. imo he (along with habbeler) were also the biggest and most shameful self-promoters ever. this are two stories, some of us still remember.

story #1 N. Pillar of Eiger. for some time this was the great objective, #1 problem of the era. there were many attempts on this climb. finally a team of 4 polish climbers went and did this route. a few days later messner and habbeler went up and did a zig-zag route. they admitted to see cigarette butts on ledges (Lalkajtys was a smoker). next day newspaper reported n pillar of eiger- first ascent by messner/habbeler. of course polish team objected and the whole story broke. and this is a true story from the polish FA party- Szafirski. during the meeting of the climbers messner said: ok, we climbed n pillar and you guys climbed "Polnische weg"....

story#2: after 1st one day ascent of Eiger messner was quoted to say:" the greatest climbing achievement, never to be surpassed"...

#2. some time ago, in the article on Everest- somehow there were a lot of firsts, but not first winter ascent! like i sais, one step above national Enquirer