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estebandb
Sep 4, 2002, 12:35 PM
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lets give our credits to our oldies: have u seen the equipment Mallory used for his expeditions??? Thats a real climb.
alive?? probably messner
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marks
Sep 7, 2002, 10:38 AM
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WOLFGANG he was the daddy.forget your stick boys graham and sharma.w-g was where the talent was.joe brown and don whillans are the greatest all round climbers,numerous himalayan peaks plus all the classics they put up in britain
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benfieldj
Sep 9, 2002, 3:52 PM
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I think the greatest all-around climber is either Royal Robbins or Joe Brown. They both did it all and always set the standard for others to follow.
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jbone
Sep 9, 2002, 4:13 PM
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John Gill.
Forget the mechanics when it's just about the climbing it's no Contest...
Way Way Wayyyyy ahead of his time..
JBone
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ergophobe
Sep 9, 2002, 4:43 PM
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Very Amero-centric list.
With all the names being thrown about, I'm surprised nobody's mentioned me.... Anyway, I think to be a great all-arounder, you need skill and vision. Skill is determined by how hard you climb free, aid, ice, alpine, high-altitude. Vision is determined by the way you change the sport, especially by your first ascents. So even if Harding may not have been the most skilled big wall climber, he would be considered a visionary. When Messner soloed the North face of the Droites by a (partly) new route, he changed the way people looked at the icy north faces of the Alps. When he went to the summit of Everest solo without oxygen, he changed Himalayan climbing forever. I just don't think you can say the same about Alex Lowe and several other with great all-around skill, but who didn't make breakthrough achievements in climbing.
Messner - good choice for the reasons listed by Mauta, but to answer camhead, Messner really made his rep by doing "short" routes in the Alps and Dolomites - very hardcore rock and ice climber for his day.
Tomaz Humar will likely be a future candidate for the list - Himalayan solos, first solo of Reticent Wall, hard free climbs. He also gets Messner's vote (after his amazing Himalayan solo, Messner flew to meet him at the airport to congratulate him, in much the way that Bonatti named Messner as his only worthy successor).
Jean-Christophe Lafaille who once had the record for the hardest free-solo in the world, has climbed A5 and has an excellent Himalayn record, as well as hard winter solos of alpine routes, but I ahve to agree with Mauta, I wouldn't call him the best ever.
Bonatti is my personal hero and perhaps the greatest mountaineer ever, but I think the folks voting for Hill, Gullich, Kauk and so on would rightly ask about his free climbing accomplishments - Bonatti Pillar on the Dru was a pretty great solo though.
Huber brothers are amazing and would meet my "visionary" requirement, though not to the same degree as Messner or Bonatti.
Alex Lowe - great climber in terms of physical ability, but not a visionary like Messner, Robbins, Bonatti. Sort of like the difference between someone who can play piano with incredible competence and Beethoven.
Lynn Hill - no alpine climbing (I just read her bio by the way).
For female climbers, Catherine Destivelle would be the obvious choice - hard sport and trad like Lynn, but also amazing aid and alpine and solo alping aid accomplishments, not to mention some decent efforts at altitude as well.
Jimmy Dunn - my first climbing hero back when he was kicking around NH, but no. Amazing rockclimber, hard ice, but no big alpine/Himalayan stuff.
Dave Graham I'm sorry, but what are his famous aid / ice / high-altitude climbs?
Ditto for Dean Potter and and and and and...
[ This Message was edited by: ergophobe on 2002-09-09 16:47 ]
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topher
Sep 9, 2002, 4:47 PM
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I dont think there is a best all around i do every thing climber. but for that catagory i say peter croft. he does the nose in like 4 houres!!!!!
bouldering Chris sharma
sport chris sharma/ dave graham,
trad i think he will be in a few years tommy cardwell( i think thats his name)but over all i still go with peter.
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katydid
Sep 10, 2002, 5:33 AM
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I don't think you can mention Destiville without mentioning Alison Hargreaves. Both in the same league at the same time, both competing to be the first and best at what they were doing. Hargreaves probably comes in second to her, however, because of her poor decision-making skills (soloing the North Face of the Eiger in winter while 6 months pregnant, deciding that the summit of K2 was more important than getting back to the bottom safely -- which she didn't).
Kate
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lieven
Sep 10, 2002, 6:25 AM
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I think it was about time someone mentionned Alison Hargreaves.
I personnally find that Hans Kammerlander is one of the greatest. Together with Messner he climbed 7 of the 14 8000m peaks. He also set the speedrecord on the North Face of Everest and did the first descent of the north face on skies.
he now has completed 13 of the 14 8000m peaks, but het won't try to get number 14 (Manaslu).
I guess most of the other great climbers in history are: Walter Bonatti, Reinhold Messner, Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, Mallory and Irvine, Alex Lowe, Wolfgang Gullich.
I think these have been forgotten:
- The brothers Schmidt who did the first ascent of the north face of the Matterhorn
- Balmat and Piccard who did the first ascent of Mont Blanc more than 200 years ago
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alpineice
Sep 10, 2002, 8:17 AM
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I would have to lean towards Messner.
I would also like to mention Steve House and Mark Twight. I admire their climbing as well.
[ This Message was edited by: alpineice on 2002-09-10 08:18 ]
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fieldmouse
Sep 10, 2002, 8:53 AM
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alex lowe, no question.
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camhead
Sep 10, 2002, 9:16 AM
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Hey Ergophobe, have you heard about Dean Potter's lastest exploits in Pategonia? I don't know if they are 'true' alpine climbs, but they are close enough for me.
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bbevans039
Sep 10, 2002, 9:49 AM
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When all is accounted for ... big walls, big mountains.. ALL AROUND CLIMBING.. Alex Lowe, Conrad Anker, they were all around climbers .. top caliber in every medium of climbing ..ice , rock , aid, alpine..
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davebbq
Sep 10, 2002, 9:56 AM
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I AM !!!!!!!!!!!
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ergophobe
Sep 10, 2002, 9:57 AM
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No I haven't heard about Dean Potter's latest.
In any case, I think there are only a few people who can be truly recognized as great in any field when they are still in the middle of their careers - Michael Jordan, for example - while so many "the next Bob Dylan"s fade away.
I don't think Dean Potter can be credited for doing anything visionary yet that transforms the sport. Okay, he blasted the record on the Nose, but taking the Record from 4+ hours to 3+ hours is not even in the same league as Bridwell, Long and Westbay doing the first one day ascent or Croft and Bachar doing the first one day ascent of Half Dome and the Nose. I'm not saying that 20 years from now we will look back and say that Potter's speed climbing foreshadowed future greatness, just that for the time being it's just that - unrealized potential. I'm in no way dissing Dean, I just mean that if we are talking about *all around* ability and greatness, he has a lot to prove still. And he may decide, like Lynn Hill, he doesn't want to be an all-arounder and a visionary, despite having the technical ability to do so - no question that she is a great climber. Lynn just doesn't like the risk and she feels completely uncomfortable on ice and snow and loose stuff. That's a reasonable choice that I respect. It just puts her out of the running for best *all-arounder* ever. I also think she fails my "visionary" criterion, but that's for another post.
Also, I don't really think Alison Hargreaves can even be compared to Destivelle. Sure, they were racing to solo the great North Faces, but look at *how* they did them. Hargreaves always did the easiest route. Destivelle soloed a hard new route on the Walker Spur and she did the first true repeat of the Bonatti Route on the Matterhorn (meaning the first repeat in Bonatti style - solo in winter). She also did a hard solo FA on the Dru. Furthermore, Hargreaves can't even come close to Destivelle's freeclimbing accomplishments (and this is for all-arounders, so that counts for a lot). Finally, as someone pointed out, I think great climbers should get a lot of points for surviving.
Though I wouldn't necessarily say Bonatti was the greatest all-arounder, for my money he is the greatest climber ever. Partly because of his skill, partly because of his vision, partly because he as much as anyone is responsible for saying "No, we don't bring Himalayn techniques to the Alps. That's the death of adventure. We bring Alpine techniques to the Himalaya". A lot of my respect for him, though, is that he survived the unsurvivable, like on the GJ with Vaucher and, expecially on the Central Pillar.
Tom
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marks
Sep 10, 2002, 11:17 AM
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steve haston!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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mother_sheep
Sep 10, 2002, 11:40 AM
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What about Warren Harding, primarily for his amazing accomplishments on El Cap and for being one of the key climbers responsible for bringing popularity to big wall climbing. I guess that makes me a Royal Robbins fan as well.
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wildingb
Oct 21, 2002, 6:21 AM
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Registered: Oct 21, 2002
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Errr, well i suppose you are all american but what about Joe Brown?
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jono
Oct 21, 2002, 7:40 AM
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i look at the names and go.........
where the f@#k is Dan Osman.
great climber, did amazing things in his short life.
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coclimber26
Nov 16, 2002, 11:47 AM
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My vote is for Layton Kor. His daring first ascents in the colorado region and his bold climbing in the alps using mostly mountainering boots make him my choice.
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moeman
Nov 16, 2002, 12:07 PM
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Ithink it is impossable to choose one person that is great at everything. Climbing is so diverse a sport that one shouldn't clump it all into one catagory. Trad, Sport, Bouldering, Aid, ice, mixed, alpine are so different and require such different skills that they souldn't even be considered the same sport. Lets face it, mantleing out a V whatever and climbin an 8000 meter peak are both extemly difficult, but that is just about their only similarity.
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petsfed
Nov 16, 2002, 12:13 PM
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Messner's got my vote for all time all around climber. But Potter's got my vote for current all around climber (new mixed solos on Fitz Roy, c'mon).
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junkie
Nov 25, 2002, 9:39 AM
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Alex Huber
My vote. Why? Simple: 14d 10 years ago. V12. M10. Free big walls. Winter solo aid climbs. One of the hardest trad line in the world (14b, Bellavista, Italy), Big peaks. Sick Ice. Sick mixed.
Alex Lowe is of the same mold, but Huber is BETTER in each discipline. Lowe was great. Huber is ever better.
If anyone still votes for Lowe then it's out of patriotism and jingoism, not genuine thought.
I'm not dissing Lowe. I think he was one of the greatest climbers ever. But this discussion is who is THE BEST.
So it's Huber. No question.
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telluryan
Nov 25, 2002, 9:48 AM
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Registered: Sep 30, 2002
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The great Earl Wiggins.
Supercrack protected w/ hexes? are you kidding?
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danl
Nov 25, 2002, 9:58 AM
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Mark Wilford
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tonyl
Dec 3, 2002, 5:39 AM
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Alex Lowe
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