Personal information | |
---|---|
Nationality | German |
Born | Munich, Germany | 22 June 1940
Died | Early 1980s? Afghanistan? |
Occupation(s) | Mountaineer, Skier |
Climbing career | |
Known for | The highest ski descent, [1] Makalu, [2] Cho Oyu [3] |
Friedrich "Fritz" Ludwig [3] Stammberger (born 22 June 1940) was a German mountaineer, skier, and explorer. He was a pioneer of mountain skiing and holds the record for the highest ski descent which he made down Cho Oyu mountain. [4] Stammberger disappeared while scouting an expedition of Tirich Mir in Pakistan. His widow, Janice Pennington, published Husband, Lover, Spy after his disappearance with the help of her third husband Carlos de Abreu. The book claimed Stammberger was a spy working with the CIA and that ultimately led to his disappearance. [5]
Stammberger was born in Munich, Germany. One of his earliest memories was of his home being bombed by allied forces during World War II. [6] He immigrated to Aspen, Colorado in 1963. [1] Stammberger took part in an expedition of Cho Oyu in April 1964. During the climb, his two mountaineering companions came down with high-altitude pulmonary edema (HAPE). Stammberger completed the summit of Cho Oyu without oxygen. When he returned to camp where his companions remained, he used skis to descend the mountain. His partners died before they could receive help.
Stammberger married model and The Price Is Right hostess Janice Pennington in 1974.
Stammberger disappeared in October 1975 while scouting an expedition of Tirich Mir in Pakistan. A 1977 expedition was made by his climbing companions to find Stammberger. [7]
Stammberger's widow, Janice Pennington received military intelligence that Stammberger had joined the mujahideen and died in the early 1980s in Afghanistan. The CIA may have recruited Stammberger to gather information. Pennington's search for Stammberger continued until 1992 and led her to interview multiple members of U.S. and Soviet intelligence. The area of his disappearance is notable as it lies between the (then) Soviet Union, Afghan, and Chinese borders and was hostile during that time leading up to the Soviet-Afghan War. Pennington published the findings of her decades long search for Stammberger in Husband, Lover, Spy. [8]
Cho Oyu is the sixth-highest mountain in the world at 8,188 metres (26,864 ft) above sea level. Cho Oyu means "Turquoise Goddess" in Tibetan. The mountain is the westernmost major peak of the Khumbu sub-section of the Mahalangur Himalaya 20 km west of Mount Everest. The mountain stands on the China Tibet–Nepal Koshi Pradesh border.
The eight-thousanders are the 14 mountains recognised by the International Mountaineering and Climbing Federation (UIAA) as being more than 8,000 metres (26,247 ft) in height above sea level, and sufficiently independent of neighbouring peaks. There is no precise definition of the criteria used to assess independence, and at times, the UIAA has considered whether the list should be expanded to 20 mountain peaks by including the major satellite peaks of eight-thousanders. All of the eight-thousanders are located in the Himalayan and Karakoram mountain ranges in Asia, and their summits lie in an altitude known as the death zone.
Dhaulagiri, located in Nepal, is the seventh highest mountain in the world at 8,167 metres (26,795 ft) above sea level, and the highest mountain within the borders of a single country. It was first climbed on 13 May 1960 by a Swiss-Austrian-Nepali expedition. Annapurna I is 34 km (21 mi) east of Dhaulagiri. The Kali Gandaki River flows between the two in the Kaligandaki Gorge, said to be the world's deepest. The town of Pokhara is south of the Annapurnas, an important regional center and the gateway for climbers and trekkers visiting both ranges as well as a tourist destination in its own right.
Gasherbrum II ; surveyed as K4, is the 13th highest mountain in the world at 8,035 metres (26,362 ft) above sea level. It is the third-highest peak of the Gasherbrum massif, and is located in the Karakoram, on the border between Gilgit–Baltistan, Pakistan and Xinjiang, China. The mountain was first climbed on July 7, 1956, by an Austrian expedition which included Fritz Moravec, Josef Larch, and Hans Willenpart.
Janice Maurine Pennington is an American former model and was one of the original "Barker's Beauties" models on The Price Is Right. As its longest-running model, Pennington was with The Price Is Right from the show's premiere in 1972 until 2000. She was also Playboy magazine's Playmate of the Month for the May 1971 issue. She is the older sister of fellow model Ann Pennington and the cofounder of the Hollywood Film Festival.
Ali Nasuh Mahruki is a professional mountain climber, writer, photographer and documentary film producer. He climbed to the summit of Mount Everest and was the first ever Turkish person to climb the Seven Summits.
Malcolm Slesser was a Scottish energy analyst, scientist and mountaineer.
David Allen Hahn is an American mountaineer, ski patroller and journalist. In May 2013, he reached the summit of Mount Everest for the 15th time—at the time, this was the most summits for a non-Sherpa climber, according to Outside Magazine contributor and climber Alan Arnette. His record was surpassed by Kenton Cool in 2022. Among Hahn’s other notable accomplishments are his 39 summits of Vinson Massif, Antarctica’s highest mountain. He has reached the summit of Denali in Alaska, North America’s highest peak, 25 times over the course of 37 expeditions.
Narendra Dhar Jayal (Nandu Jayal) (25 June 1927 – 28 April 1958) was an Indian mountaineer and an officer of the Bengal Sappers and the Indian Army Corps of Engineers. He is credited with pioneering and patronizing early post-Independence mountaineering in India, and was the founder principal of the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute. He encouraged the youth of India to take up mountaineering, and has been called the "Marco Polo of Indian Mountaineering".
Tarka Michel Bernard L'Herpiniere is a British explorer, ultra-endurance athlete, motivational speaker, and filmmaker who holds several endurance records.
Ralph Høibakk is a Norwegian entrepreneur. He established the Tandberg Data company in 1978, which produced ergonomically designed laptops and keyboards. Høibakk left the company in 1986, and started Høibakk Invest, which provides management consulting for new enterprises. He is also a mountaineer, and has climbed the Tirich Mir, Mount Everest and Drangnag Ri mountains in Asia with Norwegian philosopher Arne Næss and Arne Næss Jr.
Zsolt Erőss was the most successful Hungarian high-altitude mountaineer, summiting 10 of the 14 eight-thousanders. He was also the first Hungarian citizen to have climbed Mount Everest.
Nicolas Jaeger was a French physician, alpinist, and ski mountaineer.
Vera Komarkova was a prominent Czech-American mountaineer and botanist. Credited as a pioneer of women's mountaineering, she was the first woman to summit Annapurna and Cho Oyu.
Mir Samir, also called Mir Simir, is a mountain in the Hindu Kush in Afghanistan. The first successful attempt to climb it was in 1959 despite a local tradition that it was unclimbable. The English traveller Eric Newby and the diplomat Hugh Carless attempted to climb Mir Samir in 1956, but they could not reach the main peak, as described in the book A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush.
After World War II, with Tibet closing its borders and Nepal becoming considerably more open, Mount Everest reconnaissance from Nepal became possible for the first time culminating in the successful ascent of 1953. In 1950 there was a highly informal trek to what was to become Everest Base Camp and photographs were taken of a possible route ahead. Next year the 1951 British Mount Everest reconnaissance expedition reconnoitred various possible routes to Mount Everest from the south and the only one they considered feasible was the one via the Khumbu Icefall, Western Cwm and South Col. In 1952, while the Swiss were making an attempt on the summit that nearly succeeded; the 1952 British Cho Oyu expedition practised high-altitude Himalayan techniques on Cho Oyu, nearby to the west.
Sonam Gyatso (1923–1968) was an Indian mountaineer. He was the 2nd Indian man, the 17th man in world and first person from Sikkim to summit Mount Everest, the highest peak in the world. He was one of the nine summiters of the first successful Indian Everest Expeditions that climbed Mount Everest in May 1965 led by Captain M S Kohli. The first time that the oldest man at the time, Sonam Gyatso at age 42, and the youngest man Sonam Wangyal at age 23, climbed Everest together on 22 May 1965. He became the oldest person to scale the peak in 1965 and when he spent 50 minutes at the peak, he set a world record for spending the longest time at the highest point on Earth. The Government of India awarded him the third highest honour of the Padma Bhushan, in 1965, for his contributions to the sport of mountaineering.
Joyce Dunsheath, née Cissie Providence Houchen, was an English mountaineer, traveller, explorer and writer.