Boot find exonerates climber over brother’s death
Discovery of boot at foot of Nanga Parbat backs noted mountaineer’s story that brother died in avalanche
THE discovery of a climber’s boot that lay entombed in a Himalayan glacier for more than 50 years has laid to rest once and for all one of the most enduring controversies in mountaineering.
The leather boot belonged to Günther Messner, a young Italian climber who died on the slopes of 8,126m (26,816ft) high Nanga Parbat in Pakistan in 1970.
He was the younger brother of Reinhold Messner, who went on to become the first person to scale all 14 of the world’s peaks that exceed 8,000 metres (26,250 feet) and the first to climb Mount Everest without extra oxygen.
For decades there has been speculation that the elder sibling had left his less experienced brother to die on the mountain in a selfish push to win glory for himself by reaching the summit.
Two of the climbers on the expedition, Hans Saler and Max von Kienlin, wrote books in which they claimed that Messner was so obsessed with conquering Nanga Parbat that he abandoned his frostbitten and delirious brother.
He always denied the accusations, saying that the pair had reached the summit of Nanga Parbat, the ninth highest peak in the world, only for his 23-year-old brother to be swept away in an avalanche during the descent. Reinhold barely escaped with his life, staggering down the mountain, and wandering for six days until he was rescued and losing several toes to frostbite.
“When they found me I hadn’t eaten for six days and I weighed 56kg. I cheated death,” he has said.
Now, 52 years on, the location of the boot appears to corroborate his insistence that he did not abandon his younger brother.
The boot was found by locals at the foot of the mountain’s western Diamir face – exactly where Messner said his brother had been swept to his death.
He posted a photograph of the boot on Instagram, where he has more than 170,000 followers.
“This is further proof that I did not abandon Günther,” he told Corriere della Sera newspaper. “People said I left him to die, sacrificing him for my own ambition. I’m at peace with myself, even if the accident changed my life.”
He recalled that bones belonging to his brother had been found in the same area in 2005, along with his other boot.
“The remains were found on the slope, which I had always said was the place where I saw him disappear.”
DNA analysis by Austrian experts showed that the bones belonged to Günther Messner.