The Willy Merkl memorial expedition to Nanga Parbat

Hermann Buhl · 1953 CE · Earth

The Willy Merkl memorial expedition to Nanga Parbat — Hermann Buhl · 1953 CE · Earth — Recorded expedition route · schematic map

Climb Nanga Parbat by the Rakhiot flank in memory of Willy Merkl, on the route where the German expeditions of 1934 and 1937 had lost twenty-six men, ten in 1934 and sixteen in 1937.

Historical context

After the disasters of the 1930s, which Nazi propaganda exploited, Nanga Parbat had become the Schicksalsberg der Deutschen, the Germans' mountain of destiny. By 1953 seven expeditions had failed on it and thirty-one people had died there, fourteen climbers and seventeen porters, among them Albert Mummery, Ragobir Thapa and Goman Singh in 1895, ten in 1934 and sixteen in 1937. Karl Herrligkoffer, a Munich doctor whose half-brother Willy Merkl had led the 1934 expedition and died on the mountain, organised the German-Austrian expedition of 1953 in his memory and directed it from base camp by radio. When base camp ordered the camps evacuated at the end of June, the climbers above went up all the same, and whether they defied the order or it had been withdrawn was disputed from the start. One of them reached the summit alone.

The voyage, step by step

  1. Gilgit

    May 1953

    In the spring of 1953 the German-Austrian expedition in memory of Willy Merkl comes by ship from Genoa to Karachi, by train across Pakistan and by air towards the mountains. Its porters are the first problem: twelve more men from Hunza are taken on at Gilgit.

  2. Fairy Meadows

    1953 CE

    From the Indus the expedition goes on foot, over the Rakhiot bridge and up to the meadow the Germans called the Märchenwiese, the fairy-tale meadow, known in English as Fairy Meadows, and on to the main camp below the Rakhiot flank of Nanga Parbat.

  3. Base camp by the Rakhiot glacier

    May 1953

    The main camp stands at 4,000 metres in a moraine valley. On 26 May Camp I goes in at 4,500 metres on the last island of moraine, and the line of camps climbs the mountain: Camp II at 5,300 metres, Camp III at 6,100 and Camp IV at 6,700.

  4. Camp V below the Moor's Head

    2 July 1953

    On 2 July Camp V is pitched at the lowest point of the ridge below the Moor's Head, at 6,850 metres by Günter Seyfferth's reckoning and 6,900 in most accounts. Buhl and Otto Kempter stay in it; Walter Frauenberger and Hans Ertl go back down to Camp IV with the porters.

  5. Alone on the Silver Saddle

    3 July 1953

    Buhl leaves Camp V alone at half past two in the morning on 3 July, by his own account. Otto Kempter, who was to go with him, sets off later, does not catch him and goes back down to Camp V. By morning Buhl is on the Silver Saddle, at about 7,450 metres, with the summit plateau before him.

  6. The summit at seven in the evening

    3 July 1953

    Past the fore-summit Buhl drops easily down to the Bazhin Gap, at about 7,830 metres, climbs the ridge to the shoulder, at about 8,070, and reaches the summit of Nanga Parbat, 8,126 metres, at seven in the evening of 3 July 1953, alone and without bottled oxygen.

  7. The night on the ledge

    4 July 1953

    Overtaken by darkness on the way down, Buhl stops at about nine in the evening on a precarious ledge with a single handhold, at about 8,000 metres, without a tent or a sleeping bag, and stands there through the night. He is back at Camp V on 4 July, forty-one hours, by his own count, after he left it.

Outcome

Hermann Buhl reached the 8,126-metre summit alone at seven in the evening on 3 July 1953, without bottled oxygen, which the American Alpine Journal later called the only solo first ascent of an 8,000-metre peak, and survived a night standing on a ledge at about 8,000 metres; he was back at Camp V on 4 July, forty-one hours, by his own count, after he set out.

Hermann Buhl

The Innsbruck climber who went alone to the top of Nanga Parbat on 3 July 1953, without bottled oxygen, and stood through the night on a ledge at about 8,000 metres to come back.

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