ILLEGAL ON EVEREST By Hans-Peter Duttle
“Unthinkable! Impossible!” – That’s what Swiss Hans-Peter Duttle would have had to listen to before he set off for the Himalayas – if he had told about his plans back in 1962.
But he didn’t. He set off secretly to climb Everest via forbidden Tibet with three American alpinists. Illegally, poorly equipped, without altitude support, satellite radio or a doctor. The four of them didn’t even have any altitude-appropriate sunscreen with them. It was – as Hans-Peter Duttle says today – a suicide mission. Trying to tackle an eight-thousander in this way was an absolute novelty at the time. Today it’s called alpine style.
Alexandra Rozkosny, Editor-in-Chief of “The Alps” – Swiss Alpine Club
About the author
HANS-PETER DUTTLE was born in Beirut in 1938. The outbreak of the Second World War and the birth of his brother Rudi – and his early death – cast a long shadow over his future life. To escape reality, the Swiss diplomat’s son devours the reports of famous adventurers and explorers. After dropping out of university in Switzerland, he is given the opportunity to escape the “superficial life of the West”: Together with three Americans, he embarked on an illegal ascent of Mount Everest in forbidden Tibet in 1962 – for him, it was a departure with a spiritual character. The expedition failed under dramatic circumstances.
Back home, Hans-Peter Duttle once again found himself at a loss and emigrates to the far north of Canada, where he spends three fulfilling, happy years with the Inuit. He experienced the sixty-eight riots in Europe – during this time he trained mountain infantrymen as an officer in the Swiss Army. He married in 1970. Their first daughter was born on the Peruvian Altiplano and their second in the Arctic. Back in Switzerland, bourgeois life threatens anew. Only in old age does the eternal seeker find peace and a new love – in Gümligen near Bern.
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