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A good friend of mine is a professional alpinist who focuses only climbing eight-thousanders with no supplementary oxygen. Through him I’ve met others and learn
by TFNA 3mo ago
A good friend of mine is a professional alpinist who focuses only climbing eight-thousanders with no supplementary oxygen. Through him I’ve met others and learned about this whole community. A number of people are as weird and eccentric as us here in computer-nerd circles; one is tempted to armchair-diagnose some as autistic and climbing as their fixation, so something like Green Boots or the death of peers just won’t stop them. (I envy them that their fixation gives them the physique of a Greek god and stories that can impress any listener, so they often manage to be very socially successful in spite of their quirks.)
- cindyllm 3mo ago[dead]
- 1over137 3mo agoAren't there only a dozen or so mountains above 8000 m? Can you really do that without supplementary oxygen? Amazing.
- RijilV 3mo ago14 of them. The first person to climb them all did so without supplemental oxygen. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinhold_Messner https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinhold_Messner
- ijidak 3mo agoOk. This is the most interesting man in the world. Literally.
- modernerd 3mo agoIf you're ever in Northern Italy the Messner museum in Kronplatz is absolutely worth a visit. https://www.messner-mountain-museum.it/en/discover/corones/ https://www.messner-mountain-museum.it/en/discover/corones/
- m463 3mo agoHe made the first solo ascent of Mount Everest and, along with Peter Habeler, the first ascent of Everest without supplementary oxygen. He was the first person to climb all 14 eight-thousanders, doing so without supplementary oxygen. Messner was the first to cross Antarctica and Greenland with neither snowmobiles nor dog sleds and also crossed the Gobi Desert alone. He is widely considered to be the greatest mountaineer of all time. wow, even his hair is interesting
- lifestyleguru 3mo agoSure you can. Actually true climbers wear at all times a tight choker below 4000m to compensate excess oxygen in the air.
- somenameforme 3mo agoFrom another perspective, nobody lives forever. And so long as somebody isn't e.g. leaving behind young children or whatever, what would be better than going out while looking at beautiful scenery doing something that you love? And it's not like it's fatalism or whatever. Everest is now up to a > 99% survival rate, and even the really deadly climbs are becoming more manageable over time. Better weather forecasting, gear, knowledge, etc.
- tim333 3mo agoI had a go at Everest and figured that. My last dead ancestor had gone from Alzheimer's which is generally a way worse way to go than a mountain accident. The risks usually quoted aren't as bad as they sound as they are mostly given as deaths/summits but the majority or climbers don't do either - they just turn back, myself included.