Product Description

This is a peak by peak account of perhaps the greatest achievement of mountaineer Reinhold Messner - the ascent of the world's 14 8000 metre peaks between 1970 and 1986. The fourteen chapters describe the difficulties, tragedies and ultimate successes of the ascent of each peak. In these pages is the voice of a man suffering -loneliness, despair, hallucinations, the deaths of his brother and friends - but triumphing in the end - and the voice of a man conquering the barriers set up by nature. Messner has redefined the possibilities of high altitude climbing: he effectively pioneered the Alpine style in big peak climbing; climbed Everest without oxygen when scientists said this was impossible; and climbed Everest solo.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #104828 in Books
• Published on: 1999-09-20
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 252 pages

Customer Reviews

Beautiful photography and thoughtful narrative.
If you have ever read and enjoyed expedition books dealing with attempts on one peak, you will feel spoilt reading this; an account of Messner's unprecedented achievements in the Himalayas. Messner is occasionally hard to warm to owing to his supreme self-confidence and self-sufficiency, and the translation into English is rather stilted, but the epic nature of the narrative is nevertheless totally gripping. Messner eclipses the achievements of the vast majority of Himalayan climbers, and this book is probably the 'Greatest Hits' of the best climber there has ever been.

Interesting, superb pictures, but a bit superficial
I enjoyed reading this book. It is a great introduction to what Messner is famous for - he's probably the greatest mountaineer ever. It is also great as a coffee table book, because the pictures are brilliant! You wonder how these guys find the time to take pictures while the mountains are trying to kill them. What I did not enjoy were all the contributions from guests, basically fellow climbers congratulating him on his achievements. Most of them say the same thing and, sorry, most of them simply cannot write. As a result, there isn't all that much from Messner himself about the actual climbs and I think that is a shame.