With the discovery on Nanga Parbat of the remains of Günther Messner, Reinhold Messner's brother, one of Himalayan mountaineering's greatest controversies seems to have been resolved.
Günther died in 1970, aged 23, descending from the summit of Nanga Parbat with Reinhold, who almost perished too, and lost most of his toes to frostbite.
Two other members of the expedition claimed that Reinhold had left Günther to descend the Rupal flank, up which they had climbed, whilst Reinhold descended the western Diamar face.
Messner refuted this claim, and the controversy surrounding Günther's death has dogged him ever since.
The position of the remains would seem to corroborate Messner's claims that he did not abandon Günther, but that he was killed when swept away by an avalanche on the Diamar face.
In 2003 Messner published his account of the expedition in
The Naked Mountain: Nanga Parbat - Brother, Death and Solitude, which can be purchased from the
BMC online shop
The story is covered in two articles on the
Guardian website, including
one by Ed Douglas
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