Photographs
Kurt Diemberger, climbing in the Alps following his ‘mountain father’ Hermann Buhl’s spirit – here on the crux of the north face of the Aiguille Blanche.
Kurt Diemberger, climbing in the Alps following his ‘mountain father’ Hermann Buhl’s spirit – here on the crux of the north face of the Aiguille Blanche.
Masaaki Kondo with an improvised Japanese flag on the summit of Tirich Mir in 1967.
Kurt Diemberger and Nawang Tenzing on the final rocky couloir on Makalu during their ascent in 1978.
The Wizard, one of the fine granite pinnacles of The Needles in Southern California.
Hermann Warth climbing Shartse in 1974 with Lhotse Shar in the background. The author saw this as the start of a grand Everest traverse, a futuristic enterprise that remains unattempted.
The author climbed Gasherbrum II (right) with Fayazz Hussain in 1979 – his fifth 8,000-metre peak. The slightly lower Gasherbrum III (left) is notable as the highest summit (now it is climbed) where women made the first ascent (Wanda Rutkeiwicz’s 1975 expedition).
A member of Alfred Wegener’s 1930-31 Expedition crossing the frozen sea near Umanak.
Mario Allegri and Kurt Diemberger (proudly holding the box containing his newly acquired Arriflex camera – ‘it cost the same as the fee I received’) setting off from Milan in 1971 en route to Lapland. This was the first of a number of film/reportage trips they made together. This marked the start of the author’s professional film making, a development that was to change his life.
A youthful Diemberger on an early lecture assignment in Vienna. His multi-lingual skills have since allowed him to become one of the world’s most active and entertaining mountaineering lecturers.
During a Polish lecture tour – at the offices of the Polish climbing magazine Taternik, the author poses with his wife Teresa (centre) – a Bologna lawyer. On the left is Wanda Rutkiewicz, their host and long-standing friend, who became one of the most experienced mountaineers in the world before her sad demise high on Kangchenjunga in 1992.
Exemplars of two generations of Himalayan and Alpine achievement: Kurt Diemberger with Reinhold Messner outside a bar in Kathmandu. Even though they hold different views they remain on good terms and frequently collaborate on matters of mutual interest.
Members of Ardito Desio’s Karakoram Survey Expedition (to re-check peak heights) with Pakistani leader General Zia ul Haq in Islamabad in 1987. Professor Desio and General Qamar Ali Mirza (head of the Pakistan Alpine Club) are right of Zia, with Agostino da Polenza and an Italian Embassy official on the left. The author stands behind Polenza.
San Francisco’s Mayor, Diane Feinstein, with her husband Dick Blum, with the author and fellow filmmaker Mike Reynolds (left) in 1981, prior to their departure on the American Everest East Face Expedition. Their film later won an Emmy Award.
Managing the Hillary Step 1978 (with Pierre Mazeaud; and, far to the right, N. Jaeger, J. Afanassieff on the summit cornice).
K2 – with its ominous hypnotical ‘fairy cloud’ – an arriving storm.