Hermann buhl reinhold messner biography

Hermann Buhl: Climbing without Compromise. Reinhold Messner and Horst Hofler. Translated by Tim Carruthers. Seattle: Mountaineers Books, 2000. 205 pages.

Hermann buhl reinhold messner biography

$24.95.

Until this book, the only written material that was available for most of us on the life of Hermann Buhl was Buhl’s own autobiography, Nanga Parbat Pilgrimage: The Lonely Challenge, which was originally printed in 1956.

Messner and Hofler obviously felt it was time to delve deeper into the life of this man who for many of us became the prototypical mountain hero with his solo ascent of Nanga Parbat in 1953.

Buhl was pushing the limits at a time when the distinctions between free and aid climbing were just being drawn.

He is known less for his few first ascents than for the style and conditions in which he completed his climbs. He was a loner, despite his many climbing companionships, a fact that led both to his willingness to push ahead on Nanga Parbat and to his condemnation by the expedition’