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Messner to return to Nanga Parbat
10:25 a.m. EDT Jun 25, 2003
Reinhold Messner, the first person to climb all the world’s 14, 8000m mountains without the use of supplementary oxygen is slated to make a return to Nanga Parbat. There he has hopes of finding his late brother’s remains. The Messner brothers, Gunther and Reinhold are recorded as the 5th and 6th climbers to summit Nanga Parbat in 1970.
They climbed up the Rupal Face and descended by means of the Diamir Face. It was here that Reinhold said that Gunther, who was following behind, was killed in an avalanche. Reinhold spent a whole day searching for his brother in vein, and eventually returned to Base Camp. The ordeal cost him a brother and several of this fingers and toes to frostbite.
Recently, several colleagues of Reinhold have accused him of abandoning his brother on the ascent. Gunther was not as strong as Reinhold. A UK newspaper, The Guardian, reports that if Messner finds his brother where he said he was, it will dispel his colleagues’ accusations, "You have to understand that this whole thing is made up to sell books," says Reinhold.
Slovenian climber Tomaz Humar is going to attempt a similar climb to Reinhold’s and Gunther’s – a solo ascent of the Rupal Face, along with a descent down the Diamir face. In Tomaz’s latest dispatch it’s written that, "Messner hopes that Humar’s ascent will provide him with new information on the mountain, which would make his search easier." Tomaz just arrived at Nanga Parbat today.
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