Recreation: Climbing luminaries gather
to mark 40th anniversary of first ascent of Mt. Everest. BILL
STALL TIMES STAFF WRITER
SAN FRANCISCO - As
he gasped his way to the 28,028-foot summit of the world without the use of
bottled oxygen-something that many thought would never be done - Reinhold
Messner found Mt. Everest seeming to get bigger. "It is growing in your
inner mind... and with a growing mountain in front of you, you become smaller
and smaller and you need a lot of inner willpower to go up," the 49 year-old
Messner told a rapt crowd here Tuesday night. Messner, from the
German-speaking north of Italy and arguably the most accomplished mountaineer
of today, was one of half a dozen climbing luminaries at an unusual gathering
to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the first ascent of Mt. Everest, on the
border of Nepal and Tibet. By virtually any measure, it was the most
impressive collection of super-mountaineers ever in the United States. About
600 people paid $200 each to attend the dinner, a fund-raiser to help the
American |
Himalayan Foundation protect the
fragile environment of areas such as the Solo Khumbu region around Mt. Everest,
now immensely popular with trekkers. Those present included Edmund Hillary
of New Zealand, the first, with Sherpa guide Tensing Norgay, to climb Mt.
Everest in 1953; Maurice Herzog of France, the first, with Louis Lachenal, to
climb any of the 10 highest peaks in the world, Annapurna, in 1951; and Junko
Tabei of Japan, the first woman to climb Everest. Also featured at the
dinner were James W. Whittaker of Washington state, the first American on the
summit of Everest, in 1963, and Chris Bonnington, who pioneered small
lightweight expeditions to the Himalayas in the 1970s and 1980s, and who
climbed Everest at the age of 50 in 1985. "Tonight we have a gathering of
great mountaineers like none other," said Richard C. Blum, a San Francisco
investment banker, veteran Himalayan traveler and husband of U.S. Sen. Dianne
Feinstein (D-Calif). If there was a star among these legends of the
mountains, it was the charismatic Messner, who was the first person to ascend
Everest without artificial oxygen, in 1978; first to climb Everest both solo
and without oxygen, in 1980, and the first to climb all 14 peaks in the |
world of 8,000 meters (26,247 feet)
or more in height. In recent years, Messner has led a campaign to protect
the high mountain environment, a land existing entirely of rock, snow and
ice. "I still think the biggest offer the mountains can give us is that we
can go for a few hours, a few days, a maximum of a few weeks, in a world where
human beings should not be," he said. "And today I think we have to put part
of our energy into saving the mountains for the next generation because it is
not important to conquer them, to be on the summit," Messner said. "It is
important to have these mountains. It is important that there is silence, that
there is harmony, that there is something in this world which is left
untouched." Groups such as Blum's American Himalayan Foundation and
Hillary's Himalayan Trust have developed programs to educate children of the
Sherpas, build schools and health facilities and work for environmental
protection. The most vigorous applause of the night came when Messner
referred to "the big, unsolved prob1cm of Tibet-to help Tibetans get part of
their freedoms back" from the People's Republic of China. Blum's interest in
the region evolved from treks he has taken there since the 1960s. |