Günther Messner

Günther climbed some of the most difficult routes in the Alps during the 1960s, and joined the Nanga Parbat-Expedition in 1970 just before the beginning of the expedition due to an opening within the team.

Herrligkoffer had already organized six expeditions to Nanga Parbat and was said to be obsessed with the mountain after his half-brother, climber Willy Merkl, along with eight others, died on the peak in 1934.

Radio Peshawar reported good weather, so the expedition leader Herrligkoffer fired a rocket, but it exploded red, not blue.

Baur recounts the story that Günther did something impulsive in that he impatiently dumped the ropes they were fixing and sprinted into and then soloed the difficult Merkl Couloir.

Reinhold says that he started shouting for help at 6 a.m. and about three hours later, he saw Felix Kuen [de] and Peter Scholz[1] in the Merkl Couloir, heading for the summit.

Reinhold, walking ahead and facing exhaustion, severe frostbite and the loss of his brother, continued down along the Diamir valley until he found some local shepherds, who helped him.

[2][4] The expedition members Max von Kienlin and Hans Saler claimed that Reinhold declined the assistance of others when his brother Günther became ill.

[2] In July 2000, climber Hanspeter Eisendle found a human fibula at the base of the Diamir wall of Nanga Parbat.

A search of the talus yielded a leather boot entombing a wool-socked foot and clothing which the climbers quickly realized could be the body of Günther Messner.

This evidence supported the version of events told by Reinhold, that Günther was on the west side of the mountain when he was killed and not on the descent through the Rupal Wall.

Residual argument revolves largely around whether Günther perished in a fall near the summit, upper or middle part of the Diamir Face, versus toward the bottom, where Reinhold said he'd last seen his brother.

Also borrowing from Tibetan tradition, Reinhold and his expedition team of 14 trekkers and two journalists built a chorten, a square-shaped stack of stones, as a monument.