Reinhold Messner is arguably the greatest mountaineer of all time. His resume is practically unmatched and his list of achievements is well known. So when the 69-year old alpine legend has something to say, you can bet that the mountaineering community will listen. Recently, Stefan Nestler caught up with Messner in Cologne, where he was able to ask him some interesting questions. The result was a brief, but quite revealing, interview on a host of subjects.

In the article Messner talks about the aftermath of the massacre in Nanga Parbat Base Camp this past summer and its impact for future expeditions to that mountain. He also touched on Nepal's plans to set up a government outpost in Everest BC to keep an eye on the teams there each spring. He even weighs in on Ueli Steck's recent solo summit of Annapurna, calling it "typically Ueli Steck."

While the interview isn't particularly long, there is a lot of information to be gleaned from it. Messner even addresses some questions regarding Ueli's lack of evidence for a successful summit on Annapurna. As you may recall, he dropped his camera on the way to the top and doesn't carry a GPS with him, so there is no real evidence to support his claims of a solo summit. But, considering this is Ueli Steck we're talking about, most everyone accepts that he managed to top out, including Messner. Apparently there are some rivals back in Switzerland that have been raising doubts about the climb. It should be noted that Ueli's teammates on Annapurna claimed that they could see his footsteps leading to the summit when they surveyed the mountain through a spotting scope in ABC.

Tip of the hat goes out to Stefan for this excellent interview that covers so much ground. Really interesting stuff out of Messner as usual.

The third part of Ueli Steck's interview with EpicTV was posted earlier this week, bringing an end to this very interesting and engaging series. In this latest episode he touches on Annapurna a bit but it is more focused on Everest and the experience he had there this past spring when his team had a violent clash with Sherpas. As always, it is interesting to get Ueli's take on the mountaineering world and he offers good insights once again. If you missed the firs two parts of the interview you can watch them here and here.

We've got a new Himalaya Wrap-up today over at MountEverest.net. With teams in BC on Everest, and high winds forcast for the next several days, it's time to check in on how the teams are doing on other mountains.

Iñaki Ochoa has left Dhaulagiri, after topping out on the mountain, and is now headed to Annapurna. But before he left Dhaula, he wanted to be sure that we were aware of some other summits and pointed out that Gian Paolo Casarotto and Cristina Castagna both reached the top climbing independently, while Joelle Brupbacher, Richard Brill of Germany, and Russian Dmitry Sinev summitted with Kazakhs Samoilov, Sharipova and Shutov. Ochoa is also proposing that Miss Hawley add Sergio Dalla Longa,as well as his wife Rosa, to the list of summitteers on the mountain in tribute to the climber. Sergio slipped and fell to his death less than 150 meters from the summit while Rosa looked on.

Meanwhile, Andrew Lock is already on Annapurna after knocking off Shisha Pangma. He says his plan now is to climb up to Camp 3 in the next few days and help open the route to Camp 4 with a summit bid coming on the weekend, if everything goes as planned.

Annapurna, the most deadly of all the 8000m peaks, has claimed it's first life of the season, as Dr. Uddhav Prasad Khanal, the Liaison Officer for the Spanish team climbing there, has gone missing. After spending some time in BC with the team, he decided to return to Kathmandu alone, despite being warned about the dangers of traveling the rugged area by himself. He never made it to town and is now considered another victim of the mountain.

Finally, over on Manaslu, the teams have set up C2 and are proceeding to C3, despite bad weather. The plan is to establish C3, and if the weather clears, perhaps make a summit bid in the next few days.

MountEverest.net has posted an update on impending summit bids in the Himalaya. There has been a flurry of activity in the past few days, and teams have put themselves in a position to top out soon.

On Annapurna, Camp 2 is firmly established, but low visibilty in BC has forced teams off the mountain, and fear of avalanches, which is always the case on Annapurna, has other teams wary of going higher. Over on Dhaulagiri, several teams have put themselves into position to make summit bids over the next few days, weather permitting. Dodo's Slovak Team is aiming for the summit on Shisha Pangma sometime next week, as long as the weather forcast holds out. Finally, Gavin Bate and his team are in Camp 2 on Cho Oyu, and are also aiming for a summit bid sometime next week.

Good luck guys. Climb high! Climb safe!

It seems I've been a little quick to write off the fall climbing season in the Himalaya. The arrival of Cyclone Phailin a couple of weeks back brought copious amounts of snow to the region and effectively put an end to several expeditions on the big mountains. But apparently not everyone gave up their climbs when the heavy snows arrived as ExWeb is reporting that there has been a pair of successful summits on Annapurna and once again they came from the difficult South Face.

According to the story, climbers Yannick Graziani and Stephane Benoist topped out yesterday morning local time after spending approximately a week on their summit push. The duo arrived in Nepal in late September and spent some time acclimatizing on smaller peaks nearby before heading over to Annapurna Base Camp. They arrived on the mountain late last week and almost immediately launched their attempt. They had expected to make the push in four days time, but it ended up taking them the entire week instead, although they were finally able to reach the top yesterday.

There is no word yet on whether or not they have gotten back down safely and we all know that is a big question mark on Annapurna. The mountain is known for being very difficult and prone to avalanches. Considering the amount of snow that has been dumped on the Himalaya recently, lets keep our fingers crossed that Yannick and Stephane get back to Base Camp safely.

This was the second attempt on Annapurna for this team. They made a previous go at climbing the mountain back in the fall of 2010. That attempt was thwarted by bad weather and excessive snow on the upper slopes of the mountain.

This is of course the second time this fall that climbers have successfully negotiated the South Face of Annapurna. Swiss climber Ueli Steck made his epic solo summit, in just 28-hours no less - a few weeks back along the same route. Conditions were a bit different then however as Ueli's summit took place before the arrival the cyclone.

Congratulations to the French climbers on a successful expedition. Well done! Now get home safe.

Recently our friends at EpicTV caught up with Ueli Steck and had a chance to sit down with him to talk about his amazing solo summit of Annapurna. Last week part 1 of the video interview was released and today we get part 2. This time out we get to hear Ueli, who is for my money the best alpinist in the world today, talk about how easy it is to solo big mountains. I imagine this is the same way that Michael Jordan thought it was easy to score points in a basketball game. It just comes so naturally to them that they don't even consider that us mere mortals have a hard time comprehending how they can accomplish the things they do.

More news from MountEverest.net today concerning the ongoing climbs on Everest and elsewhere in the Himalaya. It's mid-May now, so obviously things are about to get intense on Everest, while others are finishing up climbs on various other peaks.

On Everest things are really heating up with teams moving up the mountain on both sides. On the North side in particular, it seems that they are poised for a major push in the next few days, while on the South they are still a bit tenative as fixed ropes on the upper slopes are still being put down and there is fear of traffic jams later in the week.

Rumor has it that David Tait may be making his summit bid tomorrow, and of course finishing up the first leg of his double traverse. The 16th seems like a big day on the North side with the Scottish Scouts, the Philippines Team, and Nices Meroi all aiming to give it a go. The ladies on the Phillippines Team will end at BC in Nepal on their traverse as well.

Mountain Madness seems to be leading the way on the South side, as they are making the push to summit on the 16th as well. Since they are one of the first teams up, that also means they are laying down the last of the fixed ropes too. The feeling amongst the other teams seems to be wait and see, as a number of them watch the weather and the movements of their companions.

Else where in the Himalaya other teams are preparing to top out on their own particular summits. News from Annapurna is that the Spanish team there is saddened and subdued following the loss of their friends on Dhaulagiri. But word is that they will attempt the "German Route" on the North side none the less.

Snow on Manaslu kept a team from reaching the summit there. They've returned to Base Camp and are awaiting another opportunity. And finally, word is that Amical Alpin’s Cho Oyu team topped out on Friday, May 4th.

Congrats to all the recent summitteers and good luck to all the teams going up this week. Climb high, climb safe!

Last Friday ExWeb broke the news that a team of French climbers had successfully climbed Annapurna along the very difficult South Face. As we all know, any summit of Annapurna is always an impressive one, but this one was especially so thanks to the heavy snows that have fallen in the Himalaya following Cyclone Phailin making landfall a few weeks back. At the time, we knew very few details of the climb other than that Yannick Graziani and Stephane Benoist were able to top out after spending  a week on the mountain. We were also waiting for news on their successful descent, which still hadn't happened the last time we had an update.

Yesterday, ExWeb reported that Yannick and Stephane actually had to be evacuated from Annapurna after suffering frostbite on the descent. The details still remain scant but it appears that they struggled on the way back down but were able to reach Base Camp. Once there, it was determined that they would need medical attention and the duo were flown back to Kathmandu, where they are reportedly being treated now.

ExWeb speculates that the injuries weren't particularly serious, although it is sometimes difficult to tell with frostbite, particularly early on. Hopefully Yannick and Stephane won't be losing any digits and they'll be back in the mountain soon. Considering how dangerous Annapurna can be, they should feel fortunate they got away with just a little frostbite.

They are due to return to France sometime in the next couple of days.

MountEverest.net has posted an update on Annapuran where teams having been moving up the last few days to get into a position to make their summit push.

Yesterday thre were ten climbers on the mountain, all working together to go for the top, but the spent much of the day climbing around a dangerous serac that hung over the route. When they got past that section and looked up, they saw that the path ahead was quite exposed and offered more dangerous climbing. At that point, six of the climber elected to call it a day and retreat down the mountain, discretion being the better part of valor. However, Andrew Lock, Ivan Vallejo, Serguey Bogomolov and Fernando Gonzalez Rubio have all decided that the rewards outweigh the risk, and they will cointinue up to the summit with the intent of topping out sometime tomorrow.

It should be noted that Annapurna is notorious for it's dangerous climbing near the summit. The mountain is prone to avalanches and giant seracs collapsing. Lets all keep our fingers crossed for these four as they go up. Hopefully everyone will climb safe and make it back in one piece.

MountEverest.net has posted another one of their Himalaya wrap-up articles with the big news beingt that summit bids on Dhaulagiri could come as early as tomorrow, Saturday April 21st. A team of seven climbers, lead by Spaniard Iñaki Ochoa will begin their assault on the summit with the hopes of putting some or all of them on top by Monday. Good luck guys!

In other Himalaya news, the teams on Annapurna have begun the process of fixing ropes between Camp 2 and Camp 3, while teams continue to arrive in ABC over on Shisha Pangma. Cho Oyu offers similar news, with teams arriving in Base Camp on the Chinese side, while Gavin Bate reports that his team hasn't reaced C2 yet, contrary to other reports. They're stalled out at 6800m and watching the weather. Forcast calls for snow over the weekend.

There is no question that Ueli Steck's solo ascent of Annapurna is the boldest climb of the year. News of his amazing feat has captivated the mountaineering community for the past few weeks as we've all waited to hear more about the expedition. Now that he is back home, Ueli sat down with the folks from EpicTV for an interview to discuss his latest adventure in the Himalaya. Part 1 of that interview can be found below, where you'll learn – amongst other things – that Steck feels a bit "empty" following his return from Annapurna.

It hasn't quieted down on Everest just yet, as more climbers continue to summit, and the weather remains good enought to climb, meanwhile, over on Annapurna, the teams are moving up, getting ready for their own summit pushes.

Alan is reporting that more than 70 people topped out on Evereest over the weekend, with a few notable climbs to mention. Dave Hahn from GreatOutdoors.com managed to summit, along with his Sherpa guide Punjo Dorje, as did Canadian Meagan McGrath. Word from the HiMex Team that they managed to put eight climbers on the summit and six Sherpas as well. Amongst those climbers was Tim Medvetz, the biker and fan favorite, from last season's Everest: Beyond The Limit television show.

The scariest story of the day comes from Gavin Bates, an experienced and strong climber who was attempting a traverse from the North side without Oxygen. As he got higher on the mountain however, Gavin decided to use the O2, only to have his mask malfunction. Gavin began to suffer the effects of pulmonary edema at about 8700m and was forced to abandon his climb to return to ABC before his lungs filled with fluid. We can now report that he is safely back to ABC, thanks to the help of the Sherpas accompanying him, despite taking a fall on the descent.

On Annapurna teams have moved up to C4 according to a report on MountEverest.net. All the climbers on the North Face giong up the German Route have decided to climb together in one massive push.

Word is that Spaniard Iñaki Ochoa and Romanian Horia Colibasanu are moving up from C2 to join the others at C4, and have volunteered to break trail above that camp. The two climbers were on Dhaulagiri while fixed lines were set down, and camps were established, but now feel rested enough to contribute to cause on the upper slopes. Summit attempts should come in the next day or two.

Good luck boys. Climb safe. Annapurna can be a harsh mistress.

ExWeb has posted updates on both Everest itself and the Himalaya in general today as the climbing season continues.

Over on Everest, it seems that the Khumbu Icefall continues to be a source of irritation with traffic jams reported in the area, which is the most deadly section of the mountain. At least on the South Side. There are also reports that Base Camp on the North Side is a bit tense, with Discovery Channel in the area once more to film a follow-up to their Everest: Beyond The Limit series. David Tait notes that everyone is trying to get to know one another, but that the flim crew is a bit of an irritation. You'll recall that Tait intends to complete a "double traverese" of Everest, by going up the North face, then descending on the South, and after resting a week or so, reversing the process and returning to the North.

Other teams report that Camp 2 has been established with the first climbers reaching that mark, while others are wandering in the Western Cwm. Tim Warren says he's "knackered", or too tired to put one foot in front of the other at the moment, something I'm all too familiar with of late, while other teams are fighting flu and symptoms of altitude sickness.

New from the other Himalayan climbs in the area is filtering in as well. Over on Annapurna, camps are being established and routes created, but they're not so busy to where they can't work in a few golf lessons. On Dhaulagiri, the story is much the same, with the Italians establishing Camp 2, despite bitter cold and high winds, and more teams still getting eastablished on the mountain. The same story is filtering in from Cho Oyu, Shisha Pangma, and others.

Over the past week or so, we've all been astounded by the news and details of Ueli Steck's solo summit of Annapurna along the South Face. You've no doubt heard me and others use a host of superlatives in an attempt to convey just how impressive this climb is. But to truly get a sense of what Ueli accomplished you'll want to watch the video below. It is a 55-minute long documentary from 1970 that tells the tale of the first ascent of the mountain along this route. The team that accomplished this feat is filled with climbing legends from the U.K., including Sir Chris Bonington, Dougal Haston, Don Whilians and more. The film is a real slice of mountaineering history and well worth your time if you have an  hour to kill. It'll give you an appreciation of what this team accomplished and provide more insight into what Ueli faced as well.

Yesterday it was reported that several climbers were making a speed attempt on the summit of Dhaulagiri, and the word today is that they were successful. MountEverest.net is reporting that Iñaki Ochoa and Jorge Egocheaga have topped out on the mountain.

Ochoa arrived at the summit at approximately 3 PM yesterday with his partner Egocheaga about 30 mintues behind. The Spaniards arrived at the top just 24 hours after leaving BC, an impressively fast climb to say the least. For Ochoa, this is his 12th 8000m peak, leaving him with just Kangchenjunga and Annapurna to go on completing the list. Congratulations and great work guys!

In other Himalaya news, the Spanish team on Annapurna has retreated to base camp following a fresh round of snow. Some of the team members are feeling under the weather, and it doesn't look like a summit window will open in the next few days. On Shisha Pangma, Andrew Lock is reporting that the summit push is on now that a the weather has cleard up some. And finally, on Cho Oyu, the Italians are setting off for C2 today with the hopes of improving their acclimatization efforts. The report is that the mornings are clear and beautiful, but the afternoons have continued to bring snow.

Everest isn't the only place where the action is this weekend. While teams on the Big Hill jockey for position and hope the good weather window stays open for a few more days, MountEerest.net is also reporting that the teams on Annapurna are also getting ready for their summit push.

There are two teams on the North side that are getting ready to leave BC and head up. The fixed ropes are in place and high camps are established, so now there is nothing left to do but head up to the summit. These teams include Iñaki Ochoa and Edurne Pasaban The weather isn't great at the moment however, with deep snow on the higher points of the mountain, and rain in BC. Anyone familiar with Annapurna knows that it's prone to avalanches, so lets hope those snows at higher elevation stay in place for these teams to make their run.

Teams have left Dhaulagiri after a rough season on the mountain that saw two climbers killed in their tent when an avalanche struck. Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner can't help but wonder how she managed to survive. She had to dig herself out of her tent, which was buried in snow as well, and she could have easily been swept off the mountain too. The rest of her climb was no piece of cake either. On her previous summit bid, she had to retreat in order to see her climbing partner, who got very sick, safely back to BC.

News from other Himalaya summit include a summit push by Ralf's Amical Team on Manaslu, a summit on Cho Oyu by the Kazakh team, and Italians Diego Giovannini and Massimiliano Gasperetti on Nuptse attempting to put up a new route.