Upper Bavaria mourns mountaineering legend and outdoor pioneer: "Mr.

Salewa, we will miss you”

Created: 12/22/2022, 5:15 am

By: Martin Becker

The alpine sports scene mourns the loss of Hermann Huber: the mountaineering legend from Unterhaching, who was also Managing Director of Salewa for decades, died at the age of 92.

Unterhaching

– Even if the body no longer wanted to keep up with everything due to age, the mind remained wide awake to the end.

And when Hermann Huber reminisced, raved about his great passion, the mountains, his blue eyes suddenly shone like the sky in the sunshine.

This strikingly wide awake view is now a thing of the past: at the age of 92, the internationally renowned mountaineering legend from Unterhaching closed his eyes forever.

Hermann Huber's "mountain apartment" in Gaißach resembles a private alpine museum.

The mountaineering legend from Unterhaching has now died at the age of 92.

© Martin Becker

The death of Hermann Huber, who had lived in Unterhaching since 1967 and for 40 years in Gaißach, between Bad Tölz and Lenggries, had his "mountain apartment" resembling a private museum, caused consternation around the world among his companions and the extensive family;

one of the two sons flew specially from Sydney to his dying father's bedside.

This historical recording shows Hermann Huber in 1960 climbing the Lalider walls in the Karwendel.

© Private

“He was a positive spirit of alpinism.

One of the really great mountaineers,” says Reinhold Messner (78), a former extreme alpinist from South Tyrol.

“I have the greatest respect for Hermann Huber for his creative abilities when inventing new mountaineering equipment.

He was an incredibly empathetic person for the alpine scene, who kept in touch with young people into old age and showed understanding for everything, including new developments in mountaineering.”

The Salewa company leads Hermann Huber to a brand of world renown

Closely linked to the life of Hermann Huber is the rise of Salewa, the former Munich company "Sattler- und Lederwaren", to a mountain sports brand with a global reputation.

Hermann Huber joined Salewa as an apprentice in 1945, was managing director from 1972 to 1988 and later worked in an advisory capacity in the background.

As a young mountaineer, he was eager to experiment and was already looking for innovative equipment solutions that didn't (yet) exist: an intelligent backpack system with a base and detachable part, nylon ropes with a kernmantle construction, the first tubular ice screw, a super-light tent with fiberglass poles or a weight-optimized hollow carabiner .

Sensitive film portrait by Tom Dauer

The journalist and author Tom Dauer portrayed the equipment pioneer, who was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit on his 90th birthday, wonderfully in 2021 in the 24-minute film "The Value of Time".

On his Instagram page, Tom Dauer writes about the death of the Unterhachinger: "We mourn the loss of a friend, a role model, a great person who touched us to the end with his warm-heartedness, his openness, his love of life and his compassion.

Thank you Herman.

We will miss you."

Hermann Huber in 1960 with his wife, the "Taubenstein-Fanny".

© Private

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Similarly, also on Instagram, extreme climber and adventurer Stefan Glowacz expresses his feelings.

"Mister Salewa, first ascent, inventor, developer, passionate mountaineer and climber, author, father, husband and a simply unique companion - we will miss you," writes the 57-year-old.

At Salewa himself, an appreciation of the long-time managing director says: "Many roads lead to God, one of them leads over the mountains." Hermann Huber's ascent to heaven was his last.

He found the love of his life while climbing at Spitzingsee

Hermann Huber has mastered many climbs in his life.

As a boy, he learned in the Buchenhain climbing garden from mountaineering stars of the time, such as Otto "Rambo" Herzog or Anderl Heckmair, first climber of the Eiger North Face;

he also set accents in global ventures in Greenland, North India, the USA, in the Sahara or in the Far East.

He also found the love of his life while climbing, at Spitzingsee: There Hermann Huber met the legendary "Taubenstein-Fanny", whom he married in 1956.

"I owe her an incredible amount," he recalled in a detailed interview with the Munich newspaper Merkur in 1988;

a year earlier his wife had died.

He has now succeeded her after an extremely eventful and active mountaineering life.

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