Even after returning to his home in Spain, David Göttler still seems to be floating on cloud nine. “It will probably take a month before the euphoria subsides and I can realize it all,” the 46-year-old German climber tells me.
On Tuesday last week, Göttler – together with French female climber Tiphaine Duperier and her compatriot Boris Langenstein – scaled the 8,125-meter-high Nanga Parbat in Pakistan.
It was only the eighth ascent of the mountain via the challenging Schell route. An Austrian expedition led by Hanns Schell first climbed this route to the summit of Nanga Parbat in 1976. It leads via a pillar on the left side of the Rupal flank to the almost 7,000-meter-high col between the Mazeno Ridge and the Southwest Ridge. At 7,400 meters, the route changes to the Diamir side.
Material depot at 6,000 meters
Göttler, Duperier and Langenstein were on route in alpine style, i.e. without bottled oxygen, without fixed ropes, without a fixed high camp chain and without high altitude porters. “For very hardcore purists, we gave up the alpine style when we climbed to 6000 meters right at the start of the expedition and deposited food and equipment there,” admits David. “We simply wanted to scout the conditions in the lower part of the Rupal Face before attempting the summit. But we didn’t fix a single meter of rope, carried everything ourselves and didn’t set up any traditional high camps.”
Down to base camp with a paraglider
For David Göttler, Nanga Parbat – after Gasherbrum II (in 2006), Broad Peak (2007), Dhaulagiri (2008), Lhotse (2009), Makalu (2013) and Mount Everest (2022) – was the seventh eight-thousander that he summited without bottled oxygen.
Eleven years ago, in winter 2014, Göttler attempted the Schell route for the first time, but turned back at 7,200 meters due to bad weather. Three more failed attempts followed: in winter 2022 (ascent to 6,200 meters), in summer 2023 (7,400 meters) and in summer 2024 (7,550 meters). Now finally the summit.
The team chose different methods for the way back to base camp. David managed the first paragliding flight on Nanga Parbat from a very high altitude with a launch around 400 meters below the summit. “I’ve never taken off that high before,” says Göttler. Tiphane and Robin skied down the Rupal flank for the first time.
Here is my interview with David Göttler:
David, you climbed the Rupal Face with Tiphaine Duperier and Boris Langenstein in alpine style via the Schell route and reached the summit on 24 June 24. It was your fifth attempt. What was different this time compared to your previous attempts?
Of course I learned from the first four attempts – especially the last two in the summer, where I turned back at around 7,400 and 7,500 meters. I learned that the last section is still incredibly long. On paper, the last camp is at 7,400 meters. So you think it’s only a piece of cake via the Diamir side to the summit. But it’s a forced march that drags on indefinitely. You have to be prepared for that. That’s one thing.
The other thing is that you have to be lucky with the conditions on the mountain. We couldn’t have wished for a better summit day in terms of weather and conditions. The snow was much harder and we didn’t have to break trail as much. And that made a huge difference on the long traverse to the summit.
In other words, everything was perfect this time, from the physical condition to the conditions on the mountain.
Exactly. But we still weren’t super fast. At times I thought: “I can’t believe how slowly we’re moving. It’s not that high. It’s just a low eight-thousander.” But you can see what it means: away from the normal route, away from fixed ropes. That makes a huge difference.
It was a dream of mine to climb an eight-thousander off the normal route. In 2017 on Shishapangma, it almost worked out when I climbed the South Face with (the Italian) Hervé Barmasse and we had to turn back 20 meters below the summit. This success on Nanga Parbat is a huge dream come true for me.
You wrote on Instagram after the summit success: “Definitely one for the books”. What makes it so?
That’s for others to decide, of course. But I think the first ascent via this route in twelve years and then in our style is one for the history books. We didn’t fix ropes, we only had 50 meters of rope with us. Plus the way we came down the mountain – Tiphaine and Boris on skis, me with a paraglider. It’s definitely an entry for my personal history book. I would say it was the highlight of my mountaineering career so far.
How did you feel during your paragliding flight?
It was too gusty and therefore too risky for me at the summit. So I took off from a relatively steep snowfield at 7,700 meters. The other two held my glider so that it wouldn’t slip. There were still light gusts before the start. But then I got out at some point and it was great.
I started on the Diamir side, flew along the slope and then crossed the Mazeno Col over to the Rupal side – more or less the way we had climbed. On the Rupal side, the mountain is so steep that you suddenly have around 3,000 meters of air under your legs. It was already around 6.30 p.m. I flew down to base camp as the sun was setting. The light and the atmosphere were incredible, indescribable.
How long did the flight take?
About 30 minutes.
Isn’t it crazy to fight your way up a mountain like that for so long and then fly down in half an hour?
Yes, madness. Our cook at base camp didn’t know I was coming. He was just fetching water. When I was above him, I called out. He dropped the water jug and came running. Then I landed next to him. He couldn’t believe I was at the summit on the same day. It was almost surreal that on the same day that I was at the summit, I was suddenly down there, at 3,600 meters, on a green meadow.
And how did your two teammates fare on the ski descent down the Rupal Face?
They did well, even though there were a few passages where they had to abseil. The difference is that it took them another three days to get down there. I was down in 30 minutes.
It was an exciting situation for me because I don’t normally sit at base camp and wait for my partners. It showed once again that this traverse, which both still had to make (to switch to the Rupal side), demands everything from you. I had already started at a point before that. They still had to really fight. But they had a tent, sleeping mats, stove and gas with them. So they spent the night in the traverse, then again at our last campsite and in Camp 1.
How does it feel now to have successfully completed such a long-cherished project?
At the moment I’m still on an absolute high. I’m curious to see how it will feel when the euphoria wears off. But I don’t think there will be a great emptiness. Because I still have dreams. And mountains that I would love to climb.
You scaled Mount Everest without bottled oxygen on your third attempt, and now Nanga Parbat on your fifth. You have proven your staying power. Is that what it takes to master really ambitious projects on eight-thousanders?
I think so. Sure, there are also cases of people for whom everything always goes perfectly. But that’s not the norm. If you set yourself these kinds of goals and don’t always take the easiest route, then failure is part of it.
This success feels even better because I’ve invested so much over all these years. I hope that failed attempts like these by me or other mountaineers are not celebrated in the media, but at least documented.
You were in a difficult political situation in Pakistan. We all remember the country’s military clash with India in May. Did it mean that you were more alone in Pakistan compared to previous expeditions?
In all those years, I was alone on the Rupal side of Nanga Parbat – with the exception of winter 2014, when a Polish expedition was there too. So it was hardly any different to previous expeditions. But it’s also clear that the agencies in Pakistan received a lot of rejections.
That hurts my soul because Pakistan is a country with so much potential. It’s always so nice to go there. It really is an adventurous country, but it never gets off the ground because sticks are always being thrown between its legs. I hope that the situation will calm down at some point so that the country can grow continuously in terms of tourism.
