Everest solo in the monsoon

Reinhold Messner · 1980 CE · Earth

Everest solo in the monsoon — Reinhold Messner · 1980 CE · Earth — Recorded expedition route · schematic map

Climb Everest alone from Tibet, without oxygen, fixed ropes or companions above advanced base, in the monsoon season nobody else wanted.

Historical context

China had reopened Tibet to foreign climbers in 1979, and Messner bought the first individual permit for the north side and the monsoon, when the snow is deep and the winds are lower. The idea of climbing Everest alone, from a tent at 6,500 metres with no rope, no radio and no one to fetch help, had never been seriously proposed. He had climbed Nanga Parbat solo in 1978 to see whether it could be done on an 8,000-metre peak; Everest was 700 metres higher and, in August, empty.

The voyage, step by step

  1. Lhasa

    July 1980

    In July 1980 Messner and Nena Holguín arrive in Lhasa with a permit from the Chinese Mountaineering Association for the north side of Everest in the monsoon, the first individual permit ever issued for the mountain.

  2. Rongbuk base camp

    July 1980

    Base camp is pitched on the Rongbuk moraine at about 5,150 metres, where Mallory's expeditions had camped, and the two walk their loads up the East Rongbuk glacier to a tent at 6,500 metres.

  3. The crevasse in the dark

    18 August 1980

    Messner leaves the tent at 6,500 metres at five in the morning of 18 August, and within two hours, in the dark below the North Col, walks into a hidden crevasse and falls eight metres onto a snow bridge.

  4. The first bivouac on the north ridge

    18 August 1980

    By the evening of 18 August Messner has climbed from the North Col to 7,800 metres on the north ridge and pitches his two-kilo tent in the snow, the first of two nights alone above 7,000 metres.

  5. Across the north face

    19 August 1980

    On 19 August, finding the north-east ridge too deep in snow, Messner traverses two kilometres across the north face at about 8,000 metres to the foot of the Norton Couloir, and camps at 8,220 metres.

  6. Alone on the summit

    20 August 1980

    Early in the afternoon of 20 August 1980 Messner climbs the last metres out of the Norton Couloir onto the summit of Everest, alone, without oxygen, on the third day from his tent; he sits by the Chinese survey tripod and cannot bring himself to stand.

Outcome

Messner on the summit alone on 20 August 1980, in the early afternoon, on the third day from his tent at 6,500 metres; the first solo ascent of Everest.

Reinhold Messner

The South Tyrolean who climbed Everest without oxygen with Peter Habeler in 1978, when doctors said it would leave them brain-damaged, and came back alone two years later to climb it solo from Tibet in the monsoon.

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Sources

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