Record-seeking self-promoters and poorly qualified amateurs are damaging the image of alpinism. Top climbers who succeed in the most difficult expeditions could take countermeasures – but the best of all people often avoid any self-promotion.
Bizarre and outrageous events on Mount Everest receive global attention while pioneering achievements are lost: Alpinism has a reputation problem.
Tashi Sherpa/AP
In 2023, extraordinary pioneering achievements could be admired in the mountains. In the spring, the Brits Tim Miller and Paul Ramsden managed to climb a peak for the first time, some of whose flanks converge as sharply as those of the Matterhorn. The duo conquered the 6,563 meter high Jugal Spire in Nepal via the north face, although the route was barely visible to the naked eye even from a short distance.
In the summer, the Swiss Silvan Schüpbach and Peter von Känel opened a new route on the north face of the Eiger without setting a single bolt. Actually, every possible line seemed to have long been mastered on the mountain in the Bernese Oberland where so many dramas have taken place in the last few decades – but Schüpbach and von Känel proved the opposite.
Finally, in the fall, the three Americans Alan Rousseau, Matt Cornell and Jackson Marvell conquered the 2,700-meter-high, extremely steep north face of Jannu, a 7,710-meter-high mountain in Nepal, without using fixed ropes or similar aids. The Swiss Ueli Steck and Erhard Loretan, among others, once failed on the Jannu north face.
Learning about all these pioneering achievements was a matter of luck. Articles in larger newspapers remained exceptions. When alpinism was discussed in the media, it was more about overcrowded base camps on the 8,000 m peaks, helicopter flights with ready-made pizzas on board, the lack of first aid in the death zone or a two-year-old on Mount Everest. Anyone who read the headlines might get the impression that mountaineers were becoming more and more amateurish, more comfortable and more reckless.
What happens in the Himalayas is distorted into a freak show in the media’s selection and presentation. The more bizarre or outrageous an event is, the more widely it is reported. At the same time, the truly remarkable sporting achievements are lost – and this is not least the fault of the mountaineers themselves. Because all too often they still refrain from speaking publicly about what they have achieved.
Snake on the way to the summit of Mount Everest: excesses of self-promoters and amateur mountaineers characterize the picture.
Nirmal Purja/AP
Ramsden, for example, the first climber of the Jugal Spire, has already achieved groundbreaking achievements on several occasions. But he has no presence on social networks. As the Financial Times once wrote about him, he was “practically allergic to self-promotion.”
On the one hand, it is Ramsden’s right to implement his projects in largely anonymous form and to forego advertising revenue. But because many of his colleagues pursue their passion in the mountains without attaching the slightest importance to the world knowing about their achievements, alpinism has an image problem. When pioneering acts go under, the legitimacy of mountaineering suffers because the excesses and antics of self-promoters and amateur alpinists on popular peaks such as Mount Everest are glorified as the norm. That shouldn’t leave top players like Ramsden indifferent.
Sometimes even mountaineers who feel most comfortable in solitude are dependent on the goodwill of others. For example, simply to get access to the mountains you long for. It’s not just in China or Tibet that the authorities have recently been extremely reluctant to issue entry permits. Elsewhere, too, it has become necessary to increase lobbying, for example to counter concerns from environmentalists.
Escape the “daily social bullshit”.
Often the media reticence of many top mountaineers is not only due to a reluctance to present themselves, but even a certain contempt for the public. This is exemplified by the behavior of many winners of the Piolet d’Or, an annual award for outstanding alpinists. The jury of experts always has to hope that the chosen ones will accept the prize.
In 2006, the Italians Alessandro Beltrami, Rolando Garibotti and Ermanno Salvaterra should have been honored with the Piolet d’Or for an ascent of the north face of Cerro Torre. They said bluntly that the experience on the mountain had been crucial for them. Evaluating this subjectively seems worthless to them.
In 2007, the Slovenian Marko Prezelj gave up the prize in order to take a stand against what he saw as the wrong idea of competition in alpinism. In 2010, Pole Wojciech Kurtyka did the same. He explained that he always fled to the mountains to escape the “daily social bullshit”. And now they want to force him to take part.
The Piolet d’Or aspires to be a kind of Oscar of mountaineering. However, he needed publicity for this. But the celebrations remained insider events.
That’s why the Piolet d’Or also misses its overarching goal of making the general public aware of how much mountaineering has changed. Nowadays, self-respecting mountaineers avoid fighting for equipment. The best ones manage without fixed ropes, artificial oxygen or other aids, pay attention to protecting the environment and do everything in their power to leave the mountain as they found it.
Ultimately, today’s avant-garde mountaineers implement what Reinhold Messner once made an ideal. The South Tyrolean became a legend in the 1970s when he began to do without Sherpas and sometimes even went out alone. Today, this resource-saving, rapid progress has become a matter of course in the most ambitious projects. But that doesn’t help Messner’s successors to have a good image as long as hardly anyone finds out about it. When it comes to public relations, no one can even come close to the old master.
Nirmal Purja and Kristin Harila fill a gap
Instead, the headlines in recent months have mostly belonged to protagonists who made no effort to avoid material battles. The Nepalese Nirmal Purja conquered the 14 8,000-meter peaks in seven months after numerous helicopter flights and express marches over well-trodden normal paths secured with fixed ropes. He was trumped by Norway’s Kristin Harila, who achieved the feat in just 92 days.
Nirmal Purja proves that Sherpas can also become stars.
© Nims Dai / Netflix
Both became deservedly famous. Purja managed to prove that even Sherpas, who otherwise often remain unknown, have star potential. And Harila also broke boundaries, especially as a woman who was faster than all men. The problem with their fame, however, is that both now embody modern mountaineering in the perception of the broader public. Ultimately, Purja and Harila primarily fill a gap: those who could actually claim to personify modern alpinism based on their achievements lack charisma and will.
It’s no secret that Purja and Harila’s mountaineering style goes against the high standards of their colleagues in the industry: specialist sites and online portals are full of criticism. Alpinists who otherwise rarely speak out publicly are also speaking out to express their disdain. The impression is that the scene is characterized by envy and resentment, which hardly makes it seem more sympathetic.
At the same time, a certain class arrogance becomes apparent as soon as external critics question things. The German chronicler Eberhard Jurgalski, who is not a mountaineer himself, was insulted and ridiculed when he raised legitimate doubts about certain mountaineering achievements. Ultimately, Jurgalski strives for transparency and visibility, which should be in the interests of every honest alpinist.
Every top mountaineer should be keen to focus on positive stories and self-promote without false modesty. The iconic image should be of Rousseau, Cornell and Marvell safely reaching the summit of Jannu after conquering the 2,700 meter high north face. Instead, it is expected that in 2024 a photo of a queue of people in front of the Khumbu icefall on Mount Everest will be burned into the collective memory.
Risking your life in the mountains is wrongly considered crazy: why people take seemingly irrational risks can be explained. There is a deeper meaning in conquering the last unclimbed peaks in the world and making new routes accessible. Going to extremes is human nature. Attempting the seemingly impossible is the essence of a fulfilled life. And anyone who creates something outstanding should not resist being praised and evaluated – or even questioned.