Annapurna is the most difficult and imposing mountain in the world.
What i need to feel, so that I want to climb a mountain, when I stand at his foot and look up at him? He must give me goosebumps! Not many mountains give me goose bumps anymore! I've conquered them all!
I practiced on my local mountain, the Eiger north face. For the Heckmayr route, the Heckmayr, Kasparez, Harrer and Vögl 1937 covered in two days, I needed 3 Hours and 22 Minutes. That is certainly not a bad thing, so without backup. Aber ganz zufrieden war ich mit meiner Leistung dann doch nicht. Zu viele Stellen hatte ich unsauber passiert. Also habe ich die ganze Route nachträglich vor meinen Augen Revue passieren lassen und ärgerte mich sehr. Because I wanted to be faster and set my step sequences more cleanly, I climbed the north face again a few months later. This time I was an hour faster. As soon as I had the last ice field behind me and at the latest at the Mittelegigrat, I ran. I'm sure, you can do the Eiger in under an hour.
I did Everest without oxygen, and I will also conquer Annapurna without oxygen. I will set off from Base Camp Two and first get used to the air conditions over the Noptse. The noptse is not a problem for me. Until its summit, of the 7800 Meters above sea level, I'll only be a drop off of just under 2000 Meters. I take on the noptse while playing, quasi als mentalen Auftakt, before I go to Annapurna.
I tried the Annapurna four years ago, but then I failed. A stone came off and hit my helmet, what i 300 Plummeted meters. I was briefly passed out. Dann ein paar Jahre später, when I tried again, I was transferred by my partner. So I went off alone, because I didn't want to go to waste in base camp. Something like the Annapurna is simply not to be missed!
I've never thought of death before, no, while I'm in the wall! But this time something happened: I got into a blizzard on the ascent. Avalanches went down right next to me. I stood in the wall and felt my feet, my legs, my arms no longer. Shivering, I grabbed my pimple and pressed my weight against the ice. Und in diesem Moment passierte es, you know: Ich hatte Angst! This fear, die man als Bergsteiger niemals zulassen darf. What is part of the game. Die Angst darf keinen Weg durch die Absperrung finden in mein Bewusstsein. Vor mir ist der Berg und in meinem Gehirn steckt der Plan,
wie ich den Berg bezwinge. This time it was different.
Extreme mountaineering is mainly this: playing with fear. I need it, because otherwise I feel dead. I do not know, ob du das verstehst. I have to keep getting new ones, think up more difficult routes. Dabei bin ich einer dieser seltenen Bergsteiger, that proceed spontaneously and intuitively, when they are on the mountain. But when I'm not on the mountain, I exercise like a savage. Ich bereite mich minuziös und ehrgeizig auf mein nächstes Projekt vor. I have passed hundreds of mountains in my brain in advance, her most difficult passages, the cracks, the combs, technically mastered in my mind. For weeks I bivouacked in my garden with a temperature controller, to prepare for the climatic conditions in the Himalayas. My projects are ambitious, and, daredevil. But fear, No, I do not have any. Even if I have to go from project to project and it's getting harder and harder for me, skipping a summit. After all, I'm the best extreme climber in the world. The sponsors know that too!
I'm not kidding myself: i am just happy, when i'm up, i just live, when I dive into this intense mood of the highest concentration and danger. This atmosphere only exists on the mountain, in extraordinary situations, you know! I love it, to push my own limits further and further! What I always remember most are the mountains, where I had to go to my limit. Bei denen es brenzlig wurde. It's a bit like a drug. A mountain, who demands the limit from me, is a mountain, I can never fail. I may be hanging over the abyss, the Yes. But in retrospect, I've always made it, to free myself from a danger zone on my own. I have won! Kennst du das Gefühl, gewonnen zu haben? Hast du einmal gewonnen, gewinnst du auch ein zweites und ein drittes Mal! Und irgendwann weißt du, dass du alles schaffst, denn das beweist dir deine Erfahrung.
And that's why I'm not afraid. Because the moment, in which you let fear, and you become aware of the danger, you're lost. Wem dies in den Bergen passiert, he's no longer a mountaineer. For sure, one knows, what you do. One knows, that something is at stake, that can hit anyone. Anyone can crash. But you don't! Not, when you see the mountain! Not when you go out and measure yourself against him!
It goes on and on, my routes are becoming more and more demanding. I am in the shape of my life and at the zenith of my success. Sometimes I think, maybe I don't know, when is enough. I could become reckless one day and go over my limit. When I got into a snow storm on Annapurna, something like a switch broke inside me. Zum ersten Mal fühlte ich: i'm completely alone. Meine Sherpas sind nicht mitgekommen und Khan ist umgekehrt, with the words, Annapurna is too heavy for him. And I'm too good for him. He couldn't climb Annapurna with the fastest climber in the world. That's how he moved me, after we spent weeks preparing for this event together.
People really cannot be trusted. A few years ago I believed, ich könnte einem italienischen Kollegen unterhalb des Annapurnas das Leben retten. I broke loose, without oxygen, without rope and pimples and was late with the medication. He died in the snow before my eyes. I came back to base camp and sobbed out loud. Sowas ist mir noch nie passiert. I will never return to Annapurna again, I said to myself. This mountain brings me bad luck! Beim ersten Mal wurde ich am Annapurna von einem Steinschlag getroffen, beim zweiten Mal kam ich zur Rettung eines sterbenden Kollegen zu spät. Und beim dritten Mal erreichte ich den Gipfel nachts, without GPS device!
I hadn't been to Annapurna at all! It said it in the media. It was a lie. Just, because I turned off my GPS device because of the cold, was questioned, that I've ever been to Annapurna! I had made up my mind spontaneously, to climb the mountain single-handedly, nachdem Khan abgesprungen war. I was at night, in pitch darkness 8000 Arrived meters above sea level, to the top of the summit, in a record time of eighteen hours, gives, where others need three times as much time. Und dann das …. I hadn't been to Annapurna at all, sondern auf irgendeinem, der unzähligen Schneehügel!
I'm in after all 2 I ran up the Eiger for hours, you know. But that no longer counted. Heckmayr needed three days for the north face, but he also had a veal hoe in his backpack, which weighed quite a bit. And Harrer, his second runner, not even crampons on the shoes! Hinterstoisser and Kunz fell and froze to death, one year ago, because they were simply too slow. They were discouraged by the onset of the weather at the height of the death bivouac. Her own fear prevented her from moving on. They weren't mountaineers anymore, only people. As a person you shiver in your skin, wenn dich in der Wand ein Sturm überrascht. OK, pay attention!
When I was hanging in the ice on Annapurna, I felt the same way. The avalanche thundered over me, I saw nothing more, war aufgeschmissen. I hung almost eight thousand meters above a vertical precipice! And the cordon, auf die ich jahrelang hin traniert hatte: until then and no further with the fear!, hatte sich auf einmal gelockert. Below I felt the naked fear of death! And, I believed, I would die, now on the mountain, the only one I had not yet conquered. I might die like this, dann halt jetzt. I said to myself, während ich in der Wand hing. Only when I said this to myself several times and the situation settled down, I was able to free myself from fear again. I slipped back into my skin as a mountaineer and calmly managed the descent to the base camp.
I've seen something on the mountain so often, and nobody was there. Wenn du so hoch hinauf willst, bleiben die andern zurück. Und auf einmal merkst du, wie komplett allein du bist. Vielleicht kennst du das, umgekehrt rum, wenn du ganz, ganz tief unten bist. I am a mountaineer, who trusts in himself. Just on yourself!
For sure, Annapurna has been my undoing three times, and this may be my last try, to mess with this mountain.
Ob ich weiss, wann der Moment gekommen ist, to give myself up? Manchmal habe ich Bedenken, I could pass this moment! Nicht wissen, when is enough. But: dieser Gedanke kann mir nichts anhaben. Ich wische ihn weg. I can only fail, when i crashed.
(17.2.2021)