Ludwig Purtscheller (October 6, 1849 in Innsbruck - March 3, 1900 in Bern, Switzerland) was an Austrian mountaineer and teacher.
Purtscheller pioneered climbing without a mountain guide, who in the 19th century did all the route finding and lead climbing. By the end of his life he had recorded climbing over 1,700 mountains. A celebrated climb was the traverse of the Meije together with the Zsigmondy brothers in 1885, which to this date is considered a classic alpine route. He is best known for his first ascent of Kilimanjaro in 1889, together with the German mountaineer Hans Meyer.
After a descent of the Aiguille du Dru with G. Löwenbach and Jakob Oberhollenzer on August 25, 1899, an ice axe broke and the rope team fell into a bergschrund. Purtscheller was injured and he was transferred to a hospital in Geneva and later Bern. After several month of recovery he attracted pneumonia and he died about on the date of his planned return home. In a eulogy, the American climber and mountain historian W.A.B. Coolidge called him "the greatest mountaineer who had ever lived".[1]
References [edit]
| Persondata |
| Name |
Purtscheller, Ludwig |
| Alternative names |
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| Short description |
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| Date of birth |
October 6, 1849 |
| Place of birth |
Innsbruck |
| Date of death |
March 3, 1900 |
| Place of death |
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