Well, Guinness, I admired your work. I used to page through a paperback edition of your record books. I wasn’t looking for records that I could beat and see my name in you, rather I was reading it like the personal ads in City Paper, which was a full day of entertainment. But the records, whether it was the faster swimmer or the most covered human body with tattoos, were legitimate and credible. However, I think you messed up recently.

I’m not sure whether you’re proud of what you did or oblivious to it. You know, in unseating Reinhold Messner as the record holder for being the first to summit all fourteen 8,000-meter peaks? This all came out of a significant and legitimate research project by several people, most notably Eberhard Jurgalski, who is an old acquaintance, and a friend of a good friend of mine. No, he wasn’t working for you. He was trying to discredit the frauds that tried to emulate Messner and other credible mountaineers.

You see, some climbers in recent years have pushed the envelope of what was acceptably the top due to error or egregious attempts or “gimmes,” as we might say when putting in golf. Close enough isn’t close enough when some contemporary climbers are climbing on the backs of guides, porters, and not putting in all the work, prior to profiting form writing books and going on a lecture circuit based on the credential.

The Guinness World Records’ website entry about Messner is currently titled, “First person to climb all 8,000-m mountains without supplementary oxygen (legacy).” This headline seems correct, but I am bothered, like a lot of people about the word in parenthesis. Here is the text from entry:

Reinhold Messner (Italy), who became the first person to summit the world’s three highest mountains, is considered the greatest climber of all time. He achieved all of the 14 ascents without supplementary bottled oxygen, the last in 1986, making him the first person to climb all 8,000-m mountains without oxygen – a feat that, as of March 2017, only 14 other climbers have achieved.

Guinness World Records website, November 3, 2023

Climbing has a long tradition of using the honor system and accepting claims to mountains and routes having been climbed based on the reputation of the climber. If the climber has a record of climbing accomplishments, and describes his ascent reasonably, most often the account will be accepted and added to mountaineering journals. On the other hand, someone like Frederick Cook, trying to claim he climbed Denali, he didn’t have a record and his account didn’t add up.

Messner’s credibility has been unwavering. He is loved, admired, and at the same time derided the way tennis star Djokovic is for some of his pompous and petulant behaviors. (Admittedly, Messner is usually more often misunderstood and is never petulant or tone deaf.) Messner’s critics still respect him for his 14 oxygen-less ascents that culminated in 1986. Reinhold Messner was and continues to be a pioneering influence on the mountaineering community in spirit and legend. When you’re the first to surprise the world at what the would thought was impossible, and the standards and technology change because of how you blew their mind, that’s deserving of a place in the records.

And since when did we give a dump about what the Guinness World Records say? We’re climbers. We have Alpine Journals and magazines and Instagram. We don’t have scores or ratings for what Messner did or Ed Viesturs or Nims Purja. We care who was first, how they did it in style, and we mentally keep track of how we can one up them, do their deed better, or honor them.

If anything Jurgalski identified some contemporary glory-hounds seeking attention, book deals, and conference lectures. Thanks, Eberhard, for exposing them. We’ll keep watching from here, and some of us will do you justice on the proper summit and hopefully do it in style, honor, and challenge the next climber.

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