Night Naked – Erhard Loretan

A Climber’s Autobiography

On October 5, 1995, Erhard Loretan became the third person to climb all
fourteen 8000-meter peaks, and the second to climb them without supplemental
oxygen. He also became one of only a handful of individuals to climb Everest
via the Hornbein Couloir; he and Jean Troillet completed the roundtrip climb
in only 43 hours.

An influential climber, Loretan’s story has never before been told in English.
He writes with humour, often deprecating his own accomplishments, and he is
shockingly honest: On Cho Oyu, for instance, his climbing partner, Pierre-
Alain Steiner, fell hundreds of meters. Loretan called out to what he assumed
would be a corpse. Unexpectedly, Steiner called back. Loretan writes, knowing
that what he is about to share is terrible, that he felt no joy on hearing his
friend’s voice because rescue was impossible in so remote a place.

Erhard Loretan was a Swiss alpinist born in 1959. He made his first expedition
to the Andes in 1980 and began his conquest of the 8000ers in 1982 with the
deadly Nanga Parbat. He died in a climbing accident in 2011.