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Reinhold Messner: »The mountain is often only seen as a dummy«
Photo: Matthias Röder / dpa
The former extreme mountaineer Reinhold Messner, 78, like many other experts, sees increasing dangers in the mountains in view of the climate crisis.
"Mountaineering, especially at high altitude, is becoming more dangerous due to global warming," said the South Tyrolean of the Bayern media group.
"The ice is melting, more crevasses are opening, the ice is breaking off like it is now on the Marmolada, and the rock beneath the ice is crumbling."
In addition, mountaineering has changed completely, says Messner.
»The mountain is often only seen as a dummy.
Most climbers today go to the gym, and that's a good thing.
But they haven't learned anything about the mountain there yet.« They would first have to climb easier tours for a number of years, approaching them very slowly, in order to understand what a mountain is.
"A mountain is chaotic, a mountain is much bigger than we see on the postcard," Messner warned.
“And when the weather changes, a mountain becomes infinitely large relatively quickly.
You can't come down anymore," said the Italian, who was the first person to scale all eight-thousanders in the world.
"If you haven't learned to protect yourself from the cold, death will follow."
According to Messner, you never stop learning, »not even when you are 80 years old and have been climbing mountains all your life«.
wit/dpa
