New York, 1977, 1st edition. 205 pp, b/w and color photos. Blue cloth hardcover with dust jacket. Near Fine.
Messner's ascent of Gasherbrum with Peter Habeler set new standards in the Himalaya, as it was the smallest team to succeed on an 8000 meter peak. This was the birth of Alpine Style mountaineering in the Himalaya. Also described is an attempt on the south face of Lhotse.
Reinhold Messner, the world's greatest mountain-climber, was the first man to climb all of the world's mountains exceeding a height of 26,250 feet (8000 meters), and he was also the first to cross Antarctica without either dogs or machines. Messner and Peter Habeler climbed Hidden Peak in the Himalayas without oxygen. In The Challenge this great classical mountaineer, accepted by many young climbers as a 'Messiah,' describes two expeditions: the first, an attempt on the south face of Lhotse, which ended in failure with the climbers beaten back by storms and avalanches; and the second, the smallest expedition in the history of Himalayan mountaineering, the ascent by two men of Hidden Peak.
