Germany, 1998, 1st German edition. 254 pp, 100+ color photos, maps. In German. New Hardcover with dust jacket.
Messner has written perhaps the definitive treatise on the Yeti of the Himalaya, and claims to have solved the riddle. He actually saw one himself.
Universally acknowledged as the greatest living mountain climber, Messner was the first to reach the top of Mount Everest without the use of oxygen, the first to ascend all of the world's 14 highest peaks. Reinhold Messner is without peer in his knowledge of the Himalayas. In 1986, during a solo climb in eastern Tibet, Messner confronted the greatest terror of his career - not a looming rockface or bottomless ice crevasse or murderous blizzard; this terror was alive. A creature had crossed his path, a creature of such proportions and agility that it defied reason and category. For the next few hours Messner saw it repeatedly, disappearing, reappearing, both chilling his marrow and thrilling him with the sudden yet burning conviction that he had found living proof of a legend.
For over 20 years Reinhold Messner has been obsessed with the secret of the Yeti, the Himalayan creature of legend, who in the West became infamously known as the abominable snowman. Rather than fruitless speculation, Messner - the first person to climb Mount Everest without oxygen and the first to climb all 14 of the world's tallest peaks - provides his own first hand account. He begins by recounting his own terrifying run-ins with the Yeti - while hiking alone in remote parts of Nepal - and how they led to his determination to solve their mystery through subsequent expeditions. This is an account of a quest, taking readers on hair-raising climbs through Nepal, Bhutan, Ladakh, Northern India, and even Tibet - where Messner was a fugitive from Chinese authorities.
