A Quote by Reinhold Messner

The best climbers no longer go to the 8000ers, but to the most difficult mountains in the world which are 6000 or 7000-meter-peaks. There they find any kind of playground. But it is a pity that the really good climbers have fewer opportunities to finance their expeditions because so much attention is taken away by the Everest tourists.

Reinhold Messner

Quote Topics

Finance Any Attention Away Because Best Climbers Difficult Everest Expeditions Fewer Find Go Good Kind Longer Meter Most Mountains Much Much Attention Opportunities Peaks Pity Playground Really Taken Tourists Which World

Quote Author

Reinhold Messner
Italian - Explorer
Born: September 17, 1944

Everest wasn't like any other mountain. Only one of ten climbers who attempt the mountain stands on the summit. And for every three climbers who do scale the mountain, one dies trying. The facts aren't welcoming. But you don't plan a trip to Everest believing those facts will apply to you.

Stacy Allison

I became famous for the fact that I would break many, many limits. People said, 'He does all these crazy things.' But oddly it was a crazy thing only because scientists and climbers said, 'Everest and the 8,000-meter peaks without oxygen - impossible. Messner is becoming sick in his head.'

Reinhold Messner

If we ever have children and they become climbers I'll tell them, Stay away from expeditions. They'll make you poor and neurotic.

Greg Child

Hunters get lost all the time. There's just an outcry against climbers because a lot of people don't understand climbers and they think they're crazy.

Jeff Lowe

I think Himalayan climbers tend to mature fairly late. I think most of the successful Himalayan climbers have ranged from 28 to just over 40, really.

Edmund Hillary

Personally, I would rather climb in the high mountains. I have always abhorred the tremendous heat, the dirt-filled cracks, the ant-covered foul-smelling trees and bushes which cover the cliffs, the filth and noise of Camp 4 (the climbers' campground), and worst of all, the multitudes of tourists which abound during the weekends and summer months.

Yvon Chouinard

The mission of professional mountain climbers is almost impossibly difficult by design: Their very livelihood is based on achieving the unprecedented. Their expeditions are complicated, exhausting, often life-threatening. Risk is the fuel that keeps them going.

Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi

Each climber loses one finger or toe once in a while. This is a small but important reason for Polish climbers success. Western climbers haven't lost as many fingers or toes.

Wanda Rutkiewicz

We [climbers] demonstrate in the most stunning way of all - at the risk of our lives - that there is no limit to the effort man can demand of himself. This quality is the basis of all human achievementit can never be proved enough. I consider that we climbers - that I - serve all humanity. We prove that there is no limit to what man can do.

Walter Bonatti

There are two kinds of climbers: those who climb because their heart sings when they're in the mountains, and all the rest.

Alex Lowe

I've definitely got lists of things I'd love to accomplish as a climber. But let's face it: The world's full of climbers, and the realm of unexplored, unclimbed peaks is shrinking rapidly.

Alex Lowe

I wonder if it's like this for mountain climbers, he thought. You climb bigger and bigger mountains and you know that one day one of them is going to be just that bit too steep. But you go on doing it, because it’s so-o good when you breathe the air up there. And you know you'll die falling.

Terry Pratchett

In a general sense, I think it's bad to bring too much money into climbing, since it takes away a little from the beauty of the mountains. But at the same time, I can't blame the Nepali government - or the Indian, Pakistani or Chinese, depending on where you're climbing - from wanting to capitalize on foreign climbers.

Alex Honnold

The Slovenians are the very best climbers in the world.

Reinhold Messner

Free soloing is almost as old as climbing itself, with roots in the 19th century. Climbers are continuing to push the boundaries. There are certainly better technical climbers than me. But if I have a particular gift, it's a mental one - the ability to keep it together where others might freak out.

Alex Honnold

There are two kinds of people. Those who climb mountains and those who sit in the shadow of the mountains and critique the climbers.