Not only during the ascent, but also during the descent my willpower is dulled. The longer I climb the less important the goalseems to me, the more indifferent I become to myself. My attentionhas diminished, my memory is weakened. My mental fatigue is nowgreater than the bodily. It is so pleasant to sit doing nothing – and therefore so dangerous. Death through exhaustion is like deaththrough freezing – a pleasant one.

My father blamed me for my brother Gunther’s death, for not bringing him home. He died in an avalanche as we descended from the summit of Nanga Parbat, one of the 14 peaks over 8,000m, in 1970. Gunther and I did so much together. It was difficult for my father to understand what it was like up there.