Career Piolet d’Or to Messner

MAURICE HERZOG PERSONALLY WILL PRESENT THE AWARD TO THE “KING OF EIGHT-THOUSANDERS” ON APRIL 9 IN COURMAYEUR

A year ago, Walter Bonatti – and now, Reinhold Messner. Not only has the second Piolet d’Or for lifetime achievement been assigned to the “King of Eight-thousanders; it is Maurice Herzog personally, who will present him with the award on April 9 in Courmayeur, during the grand kermesse of the Piolets d’Or (in the next days, we shall know the names of all the nominees). The encounter between these two men is, no doubt, apt to stir our emotions: on one hand, the man who forty years ago, in 1970, experienced his first ascent of an 8000-meter-peak – Nanga Parbat – he, who was bound to become, sixteen years later, the first alpinist in history to complete the “collection” of all the 14 highest summits of our planet; on the other hand, the leader of France’s victorious expedition to Annapurna, who was, together with Louis Lachenal, the first human – back in 1950 – to set his feet on the very top of an eight-thousand-meter giant. Let us mention, as well, that in 1985 Messner himself (born in Brixen, Italy, on September 17, 1944, Herzog having been born in Lyon, France, on January 15, 1919) established one of his most remarkable Himalayan ascents on Annapurna, tracing a highly demanding line up the mountain’s northwest face, together with Hans Kammerlander.

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Cover photo. Reinhold Messner (arch. Ivo Rabanser)

Photo 1. Maurice Herzog (www.desnivel.com)

Photo 2. Courmayeur, April 24, 2009: Walter Bonatti holding the Career Piolet d’Or in his hands (photo by Pascal Tournaire)

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Links for further details

-Portrait of Reinhold Messner:
www.intraisass.it/ritratto03.htm

-Career Piolet d’or to Walter Bonatti:
www.intotherocks.splinder.com/post/20268570

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Italian version (full text)

www.iborderline.net/intotherocks/2010/02/messner-piolet-dor-alla-carriera

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