100 Years of HANWAG – 100 Outdoor Stories

Hiking, trekking and mountaineering have changed considerably since HANWAG was founded in 1921. A century in time-lapse – 100 years from the early pioneers to extreme hikers, from  Edward Norton and Grandma Gatewood to Brocken-Benno.

100 donkeys are used to escort the first British Mount Everest Expedition, on the 480-km march from Darjeeling to the highest mountain on Earth. At house number 56 in the town of Vierkirchen, Bavaria, which at the time only counted 1,100 inhabitants, Hans Wagner, the son of a shoemaker, sets up his own shoemaking workshop – launching what will become the HANWAG brand.

In Spain, the Federación Española de Deportes de Montaña y Escala, the National Alpine Association of Spain is established. It’s 60 years after the Austrian Alpine Association and 20 years after the American Alpine Club, but five years before the Greek Mountaineering and Climbing Association (Ellinikí Omospondía Oreivasías Anarríchisis).

The famous ‘Pallavicinirinne’, an 800-metre-long ice couloir on the Grossglockner is climbed solo for the first time. The versatile mountaineer from Vienna, Alfred Horeschowsky, takes eight hours for the ascent, cutting a total of 2,500 steps into the ice, and goes on to prove that the good don’t always die young (he lived to the ripe old age of 92).

British officer Edward Norton enjoys his finest hour. As expedition leader of the British Everest Expedition, Norton reaches 8,573 metres without the use of supplemental oxygen – a record he holds until 1952. But it is his fellow countrymen George L. Mallory and Andrew C. Irvine who become national heroes, when on their third attempt, they both go missing on the mountain. The mystery of whether or not they summitted before they vanished goes with them to the grave.

The two-day Appalachian Trail Conference (ATC) is held in Washington, D.C., which later becomes the non-profit organisation of the same name, and is eventually renamed the Appalachian Trail Conservancy. The first section of the long-distance trail had already been laid out by volunteers in 1922, but it was not until the ATC that the now world-famous, 3,529-kilometre long Appalachian Trail began to take shape. The trail was finally completed on August 14, 1937.

‘The Holy Mountain’ (‘Der heilige Berg’), a mountain film directed by Arnold Fanck, starring Leni Riefenstahl in the lead role, hits the silver screens. It is one of many films of this genre, with war-like titles, to emerge during the 1920s. In 1928 there is ‘Fight for the Matterhorn’ (‘Der Kampf ums Matterhorn’) with Luis Trenker, and in 1929, ‘The White Hell of Piz Palü (‘Die Weiße Hölle vom Piz Palü’), again, directed by Fanck and starring Riefenstahl.

The German and Austrian Alpine Association (DuÖAV) extends its charter to include the promotion of nature conservation as well as mountaineering. In 1918, timber industrialist Albert Wirth already donated 40 square kilometres of land in the Hohe Tauern to the Alpine Association in order to place it under protection. But it would be a few decades yet until the Hohe Tauern National park was established.

As part of a Soviet-German expedition, the three climbers Karl Wien, Eugen Allwein and Erwin Schneider make it to the summit of the 7,134-metre-high Pik Lenin on September 25 of this year. It was called Kaufmann Peak until the year of the first ascent, and since 2006 it has been called Abuali ibni Sino Peak, although other sources (e.g. Google Maps) refer to it as Independence Peak. Today, the mountain on the Tajik-Kyrgyz border in the Pamir Mountains counts as a popular, relatively straightforward seven-thousand-metre peak.

The Grand Teton Nationalpark is founded on February 26th. What’s special here, is the date, rather than the year. It is exactly ten years to the day after the Grand Canyon was turned into a national park (February 26, 1919), and again in 1917 – also February 26 – a huge area around Mount McKinley, was turned into what is known as the Denali National Park. All three are considered among the best destinations for hikers, trekkers, mountaineers and adventurers.

Students Franz and Toni Schmid pedal their bikes from Bavaria to Zermatt to be the first team to climb the North Face of the Matterhorn. In keeping with the tone of 1930’s alpine publications, they didn’t just climb it, they conquered it – or at least vanquished it. It’s a Spartan affair, involving sleeping on rock ledges and with nothing to eat but chocolate, sweetcorn and bits of old bread. At the Solvay Bivouac, the team simply take off their frozen clothes and stand them in the corner.

Hiking is a trend – it’s official! A certain E. Benesch describes three long-distance hiking routes in the Alps at the beginning of the 1930s. At least, this is what the online encyclopaedia Wikipedia says, which the entire world wide web has consequently reported. Little could he have known that some 90 years later, there would be enough hiking trails through the Alps to fill any number of Wikipedias.

In England, a short Pathé film is made about hiking, which is later uploaded onto YouTube under the title of ‘Hiking Hints 1933’. Right at​​ the start of the film they cover the topic of kit, and we are told “hikers’ shoes should be nailed”. And that there are “three different types of rucksack”. This is accompanied by other wonderfully put pieces of advice from the era. “Food, of course,” we are told, “is most important.” Or that “hikers can reach places unapproachable to motorists”. And “the hills are theirs, as are the valleys.”

Famous British explorers and mountaineers Eric Shipton and Bill Tilman discover a route through the Rishi Gorge to access the Nanda Devi Sanctuary around the highest mountain in India (until Sikkim became part of India in 1975). Two years later Tilman and his team make it to the summit of Nanda Devi (7,816 m), setting a new altitude record, which stands till 1950. Tilman is said to have come up with the thought-provoking phrase: “No man goes as fast or as far as a man who knows not where he is going.”

Germany’s Tausend-Mark-Sperre (1,000-mark embargo) is lifted and the hiking paradise of Austria is once again accessible. The embargo introduced three years earlier by the Third Reich was designed to weaken the economy of its neighbouring country, which was dependent on tourism. During this period, the crisis in bilateral relations meant that German citizens had to pay a fee of 1000 mark to the German Reich if they wanted to cross the border into Austria.

Finally! Anderl Heckmair, Heinrich Harrer, Ludwig Vörg and Fritz Kasparek are the first to successfully climb the North Face of the Eiger. It takes them three days. The four-man team from Germany and Austria are later praised by Adolf Hitler for their ‘Heroic act on the wall of death’ (Nazi propaganda jargon). He views the deed as further proof of the superiority of the master race. Less than a century later, Swiss alpinists speed climb the Heckmair Route in under three hours.

Kraft durch Freude (Strength Through Joy) trips are introduced shortly before the Second World War. The German Office of Travel, Hiking and Holidays, at that time the largest travel company in the world, was responsible for the excursions and trips. Among other things, the KdF trips were intended to promote a strong sense of local identity and community, increase motivation and serve as National Socialist propaganda. Or in other words, even hiking was exploited by the Third Reich for its own purposes.

World War II brings to a halt the joy of hiking and mountaineering that had been so widely promoted just a short while earlier – all over the world. In the USA, too, trails fall into disrepair without regular maintenance, and some sections of the famous Appalachian Trail are closed. Nevertheless, four young boys with a penchant for adventure discover the now famous Lascaux caves in France.

Destruction, despair, recovery – in many respects the 1940s was a lost decade for so many. Here’s a brief look around the world at some of the events important to mountaineering.

The exceptional alpinist, David Lama mentor (see 2012), climbing partner to Reinhold Messner (see 1979) and all-round great guy Peter Habeler is born in this year.

The British Mountaineering Council is founded.

The War is over. There can be no better news than that.

The idea of hiking the mountain ridges of the western USA parallel to the Pacific Ocean first arises – these are the foundations of the Pacific Crest Trail.

The six-level climbing scale is established in Chamonix. In 1968 it is officially named the UIAA scale, after the Union Internationale des Associations d’Alpinisme.

Yevgeniy Abalakov, who together with his brother Vitali (see 1943) can be compared to the Klitschko brothers of mountaineering, sadly misses out on the revival of alpinism. He dies at the age of 41. Not on the mountain, but from poisoning. According to Ed Douglas’ definitive book ‘Mountaineers’, he was being investigated by the Ministry of the Interior (NKVD) at the time.

Sporthaus Schuster in Munich sells the first ever kernmantle ropes. Climbing publications describe it as a ‘milestone’.

French alpinists Maurice Herzog and Louis Lachenal make it to the summit of Annapurna (8,091 m) and with it, become the first to climb an eight-thousander.

The 1950s proves to be not only the decade for 8,000er ascents but also the decade for the creation of the first National Parks in the United Kingdom. Improving access for people who enjoy hiking is one of its main aims. The Peak District National Park, the first British national park, is founded on 17 April 1951. Today, it has almost 3,000 km of hiking trails, making it much more than a holiday’s worth.

In Wales, the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park is established for its rich bird life – and another top travel tip is added to the list. It takes another 18 years, however, until the 300-kilometre-long Pembrokeshire Coast Path, one of the first of Great Britain’s 16 National Trails, to be opened. In 2012, National Geographic even named the area number two in the World’s most beautiful coastal regions.

Ten school children and three teachers from the Heilbronn boy’s middle school are killed in a snowstorm in the middle of April while hiking on Krippenstein mountain in the Dachstein Range – despite being warned several times about the weather forecast. One of the biggest search operations in Alpine history ensued, with over 400 mountain rescue members, mountain police and volunteers. 43 days later, they finally located the last of the bodies. The fateful event is forever etched in the collective memory of the city of Heilbronn as the Dachstein Disaster.

A perfect example of the rise in hiking’s popularity is 67-year-old Emma ‘Grandma’ Gatewood’s first solo hike along the full length of the 3,500-kilometre-long Appalachian Trail in 146 days – and in one stretch. In 2012, the mother of eleven children was posthumously added to the Appalachian Trail Hall of Fame. She is also hailed as a pioneer of ultra-light hiking – further proof that most modern trends are actually retro at their core (see 1967).

Exceptional alpinist Hermann Buhl, from Austria, dies at the age of 32 on Chogolisa, a 7,668-metre-high mountain in the Karakoram Range. At the time, he was one of only two people to have climbed two 8,000-metre peaks: Nanga Parbat (1953) and Broad Peak (1957). His 41-hour solo ascent of Nanga Parbat, where he bivouacked on ledge at almost 8,000 metres, and probably only survived thanks to the drug Pervitin, still stands as one of mountaineering’s greatest accomplishments.

Dietrich Hasse, Lothar Brandler, Jörg Lehne and Sigi Löw put up a direct line through the north face of the Cima Grande, a route which to this day is still called the Hasse-Brandler route. While these climbers used aid (bolts and étriers to help them ascend), 44 years later, the same route is climbed by Bavarian Alexander Huber free solo, i.e. on his own and with no protection (see 2002).

At the end of February 1959, the weeks-old bodies of nine young ski tourers are discovered on the Djatlov pass in the north Ural Mountains, with smashed-in skulls, broken ribs and burned flesh. One of the victims has no eyes or tongue; the few items of clothing belonging to the half-naked, barefoot climbers as they fled the tent at minus 30 degrees reveal radioactive particles. The tragedy prompts an investigation that is closed in May of that year, sparking off several conspiracy theories, and remains unsolved to this day. Was it indigenous Mansi people, nuclear weapons testing, the Yeti, aliens? Or was it actually just an avalanche?

Fjällräven is founded by Åke Nordin in the city of Örnsköldsvik, in central Sweden. Eight years later, using old tent fabric for inspiration, he invents G-1000 fabric, made from 65% polyester and 35% cotton. The arctic fox – or Fjällräven in Swedish – is adopted as the company logo and today more than ever is a stark reminder of the species who are most at risk from the climate crisis.

The first winter ascent of the Eiger North Face takes place from March 6-12, 1961. Like the very first ascent of the Eiger North Face in the summer of 1938, the winter ascent is also carried out by an Austro-German team of climbers: Toni Kinshofer, Toni Hiebeler, Walter Almberger and Anderl Mannhardt.

The anniversary of the first ascent of the Ankogel by a farmer from the region is celebrated for the 200th time, but does not attract acclaim beyond the region. And yet the farmer reached the summit of the 3263-metre-high glaciated peak in the Hohe Tauern 24 years earlier than Jacques Balmat and Michel-Gabriel Paccard first climbed Mont Blanc (1786) – and which is roundly hailed as the birth of alpinism.

The first president of the Federal Republic of Germany (1949 – 1959) and avid hiker, Theodor Heuss dies. He is credited with the aphorism: “The point of travelling is to get to a destination; the point of hiking is to be on the move.” Today, a themed hiking trail around his birthplace of Brackenheim follows in Heuss’ footsteps through, among other places, the region where his favourite wine was grown.

With the first ascent of Shishapangma completed, the last and also lowest of the 8,000ers is climbed. Meanwhile, in an editorial in the journal “Alpinismus”, writer and above-mentioned Eiger North Face winter climber Toni Hiebeler (see 1961) classifies hiking in the canon of mountain sports: “Hiking is the origin of mountaineering, so mountaineering is hiking.”

Outstanding Italian alpinist, Walter Bonatti climbs the north face of the Matterhorn, solo, in winter, and by a new route, which to this day has only been repeated a handful of times. It is his final feat as a mountaineer, and he starts a new career which is just as exciting as a photographer and reporter, travelling the world.

British mountaineers Chris Bonington, Rusty Baillie and Tom Patey are the first to climb the Old Man of Hoy, a vertical sea stack off the west coast of the Scottish Island of Hoy. When Bonington and Patey repeat the ascent one year later, the BBC broadcasts it. Over 15 million people tune in to watch.

In January, Emma ‘Grandma’ Gatewood (see 1955) at almost 80 years old, starts what is to become her yearly six-mile hike in the Hocking Hills State Park in Ohio, and which more people follow her on each year. At her last hike, in 1973, 2,500 people join her. This makes her the leader in ever-growing followers, 27 years earlier than the much more famous Forrest Gump.

In February, British polar explorer Walter William ‘Wally’ Herbert sets out together with three teammates on their Transarctic Expedition. Using dogsleds, he aims to cross the Arctic Ocean from Alaska to Spitzbergen, via the North Pole. Because current understanding now means that adventurers Frederick Cook and Robert Edwin Peary are now not thought to have reached the North Pole at the beginning of the 20th century, Wally Herbert is likely the first person to reach the North Pole on foot – exactly 60 years after Peary’s now controversial North Pole feat – on 6 April 1969.

At the suggestion of the banker Georg Fahrbach, the European Ramblers Association is founded in Onstmettingen, a suburb of Albstadt in Baden-Württemberg. Hardly anyone knows about it, but it has several dozen member organisations and more than five million members. One of its aims is to create a network of long-distance hiking trails in Europe.

While descending Mount Kenya (5,199 m), 29-year-old doctor Gert Judmaier falls and suffers an open lower leg fracture at an altitude of more than 5,000 metres; effectively a death sentence. Against all odds, the young man from Innsbruck is rescued from the face a week later with the help of his climbing partner Oswald Oelz and the Tyrol Mountain Rescue Service. 46 years later Reinhold Messner directs a film about it. In this year, the first climbing harness is introduced to the market.

Four ski tourers from Austria – Robert Kittl, Klaus Hoi, Hansjörg Farbmacher and Hans Mariacher – set out on 21 March to cross the length of the Alps from Reichenau an der Rax to Nice in the South of France. They take 40 days to cover the 1,917-kilometre route with 85,510 vertical metres.

The network of long-distance hiking trails in Europe is steadily growing. On 2 July – under the auspices of the European Ramblers’ Association (see 1969) – the European Long-Distance Trails E1 and E5, for instance, are opened. The latter runs from the Pointe du Raz on the French Atlantic coast to Verona in Italy. Although decades later, most hikers opt to cut the total distance of 3,200 kilometres down to the most famous stages between Oberstdorf and Meran. In the same year, the 180-kilometre-long GR20 in Corsica is also opened.

More and more specialist tour operators are being established in response to an increase in mountaineering and hiking. Four years after the DAV Summit Club and ten years after the Alpine School Innsbruck’s ASI Reisen are founded, mountaineer Günter Hauser brings his mountain travel company Hauser Exkursionen to the flourishing market.

Hamish Brown succeeds in setting a new record for Munro bagging, climbing all the mountains in Scotland that are over 3,000 feet (914.4 m) high. Over the course of 112 days’ hiking – only occasionally using a bicycle (241 km) or a ferry – Brown climbs 289 peaks, including all 282 Munros, from 4 April to 24 July. He covers 2,638 kilometres and 137,000 vertical metres – and as legend has it, gets through three pairs of boots.

Peter Habeler and Reinhold Messner climb Hidden Peak, becoming the first to climb an 8,000-metre peak in alpine style – in other words, in the way that mountains in the Alps had been climbed to date: fast and light, in teams of two, and without supplemental oxygen, porters or fixed lines. But the two gained greater fame three years later, when they climbed Mount Everest without bottled oxygen.

From the mid-seventies, the boom in the outdoor movement is such that it is set to continue into the new millennium. The article ‘Hiking – in the Wilderness Close to Home’ in the New York Times of 23 May states that backpacking is flourishing as a sport for outdoorsmen. According to the article from 1976 it is “probably because of the new ecology ethic as well as the development of lightweight nylon and aluminium hiking gear designed to take the backache out of load bearing.”

According to Oficina de Acogida al Peregrino statistics, a total of 13 pilgrims reach Santiago de Compostela each year. 20 years later, that figure is 30,216, and four decades later, 327,378.

One year on from Peter Habeler and Reinhold Messner’s first ascent of Mount Everest without oxygen, Messner and Michael Dacher climb K2 – the world’s second-highest and far more technically difficult 8000-er mountain. Again without supplemental oxygen.

Ueli Bühler climbs the North Face of the Eiger in eight hours. His record time only stands for a year, before the Slovenian climber Franček Knez beats it by two hours. One year later, Thomas Bubendorfer takes less than five hours. And in November 2015, Ueli Steck from Switzerland races up in half the time. He solos the 1,800-metre wall in 2:22:50.

Dutch mountaineer Johan Taks is first to stand on the summit of Changste on 3 October. However, he climbs the 7,563-metre peak north of Mount Everest in Tibet without a permit. He’s eleven days ahead of the first, official ascent, by a German expedition with Udo Zehetleitner.

Bart Vos is the first Dutch mountaineer to stand on Mount Everest. Years later, his solo summit is called into question by another expedition leader. Previously, Vos’ success on Dhaulagiri (8,167 m) via the East Face in 1996 had been revealed as false.

Climbing establishes itself as a sport in its own right, and emancipates itself from classic mountaineering. One year on from the German Alpine Club’s (Deutscher Alpenverein) historic decision to get involved in sport climbing, the first ever international climbing competition takes place in Bardonecchia in the Susa Valley, Italy.

The West Highland Way opens in 1980 as Scotland’s first official long-distance hiking route. In 1986, a group of athletes decide to run it and the West Highland Way Race is born. The 154–kilometer ultra marathon reflects the zeitgeist. More and more trails, long-distance hiking routes and mountains are raced against the clock. For example, the Swiss Alpine Marathon is created.

Polish mountaineer Jerzy Kukuczka reaches the summit of Shishapangma and becomes the second person, one year after Reinhold Messner, to climb all 14 eight-thousanders. He climbed nine of them via new routes and made four winter ascents. As such, his high-alpine achievements are viewed by many experts as even greater than Reinhold Messner’s.

According to the German Alpine Club (Deutscher Alpenverein), the sleeping bag liner is introduced this year. In Germany, the DAV produces a popular advertising poster with distinguished-looking gentleman, sleeping in a mountain hut dormitory, with a monocle, bow tie and naturally a sleeping bag liner (German: ‘Hüttenschlafsack’).

The Rennsteig – Germany’s oldest, best-known and most popular long-distance trail is officially reopened on 28 April 1990. During the Cold War, it was not possible to hike the 170-kilometre path that runs through Bavaria and Thuringia as it crossed the inner German border in several places.

The young American hitch-hiker Christopher McCandless makes his way to Alaska where he lives in an old, derelict bus in the wilderness. Reportedly, he is left too weak to hike out after eating poisonous seeds, and dies of starvation on 18 August. A few years later his story is made famous by Jon Krakauer’s non-fiction book ‘Into the Wild’.

Together with her climbing partner Brooke Sandahl, American rock climber Lynn Hill makes the first free ascent of what is now the world’s most famous climbing route, ‘The Nose’ on El Capitan, in Yosemite. Depending on your definition of free climbing, her achievement remains unrepeated until 1998 – or even 2005.

The three hardest multi-pitch routes in Europe were all climbed in 1994: ‘End of Silence’ 8b+ in Germany’s Berchtesgaden Alps by Thomas Huber, ‘Des Kaisers neue Kleider’ in Austria’s Wilder Kaiser by Stefan Glowacz and ‘Silbergeier’ 8b+ in the Swiss Rätikon, by Beat Kammerlander. Collectively, they are known as the ‘Alpine Trilogy’.

Brocken Benno (see 1989) from Wernigerode in the Harz Mountains, climbs the Brocken for his 1,000th time. Two years later, he hikes his way into the Guinness Book of Records.

While on a bicycle expedition through the Himalayas, Swedish adventurer and mountaineer Göran Kropp, makes a solo ascent of Mount Everest and also tests out the first stove to burn multiple fuel types, including canister gas, diesel and petrol – the Primus MutliFuel. Another mountaineer, Edmund Hillary, had a similar version of the stove on his pack during his Mount Everest Expedition in 1953, while polar explorer Roald Amundsen used an earlier forerunner at the South Pole.

On 17 July, the relatively unknown Korean mountaineer Oh Eun-sun summits Gasherbrum II, her first eight-thousander. Thirteen years later, she becomes the first woman to climb all the world’s 8,000ers – although is strongly criticised for using supplementary oxygen.

The ‘Nederlandse Klim- en Bergsport Vereniging’ (The Netherlands Alpine Club) is formed after a merger of the ‘Koninklijke Nederlandse’ Alpine Club and the ‘Nederlandse Bergsport’ Mountaineering Club. From 1949 to 1971, the latter association was known as the ‘Holland Section’ of the Austrian Alpine Club (Österreichischer Alpenverein).

The idea of a European network of long-distance hiking trails proposed 30 years previously (see 1969) takes shape. The eleven trails cover some 50,000 kilometres and connect people from Sicily to the North Cape and from Galway at the Atlantic Ocean to the Carpathians and the Black Sea.

Canadian Jean Béliveau sets out from Montreal on 18 August on a walk that is to finish 11 years later and include 75,000 kilometres, 54 pairs of shoes and 64 countries. Asked by the media why he decided to walk around the world many years later, he answers: midlife crisis.

Alexander Huber climbs the legendary, 500-metre Hasse-Brandler route (7a+) on the Cima Grande in the Dolomites – free solo, i.e. with no rope, and no protection. His achievement is still regarded as a milestone of modern alpinism.

In the North Swedish province of Norrbottens län, the 100-kilometre long-distance hiking trail Dag Hammarskjöldsleden is opened. Named after the former Secretary-General of the United Nations and Nobel Peace Prize recipient, Dag Hammarskjöld, it follows the first seven sections of the Kungsleden (King’s Trail).

The Fjällräven Classic trekking event is held in North Sweden for the first time. The 110-kilometre long route follows the Dag Hammarskjöldsleden (see 2004) from Nikkaluoktat to Abisko. Due to its success, the format is exported to other countries, including the United Kingdom, Germany, Denmark and Korea.

The International Snowshoe Federation (now called the World Snowshoe Federation) organises the first ever World Snowshoe Running Championships on the Dachstein Glacier in Austria. Emanuele Manzi from Italy wins the men’s event, covering the 7.8-kilometre course in 26:41 minutes, while his fellow Italian, Maria Grazia Roberti wins the women’s event in a time of 32:26.

The Alpine Club in London celebrates its 150th anniversary, as the oldest mountaineering club in the world. Founded in 1857, the British club is not just testimony to the nation that originally pioneered mountaineering in the Alps, but also proof of how the mountain world was dominated primarily by men. It only merged with the Ladies’ Alpine Club (founded 1907) in 1975.

The ‘women who walked the most in the world’ and proven long-distance trekker, Christine Thürmer, has hiked the Pacific Crest Trail, the Continental Divide Trail and the Appalachian Trail too. The first person to complete the ‘Triple Crown of Hiking’ with 12,800 kilometres was Eric Ryback in the 1970s.

The Karwendelmarsch restarts after a 20-year break. It covers some 52 kilometres with 2,280 metres of elevation gain (with a shorter version of 35 kilometres and 1,500 metres height gain). In its original edition from 1969 to 1990, the Karwendelmarsch was at times the largest sporting event in Tirol.

In May 2010, Sarah Marquis starts her trek from Siberia to South Australia. Over the following three years, she covers around 20,000 kilometres, crossing – according to her website – six countries and the Gobi Desert, facing sand storms, hail storms, coping with dengue fever, and travelling by container ship to Australia, where her epic journey ends on 17 May.

25 years after South Tyrolean mountaineer Reinhold Messner climbs all the world’s eight-thousanders without using bottled oxygen, Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner from Austria becomes the first woman to do it.

Together with his partner Peter Ortner, 21-year-old Tyrolean climber David Lama climbs the world-famous Compressor Route free, i.e. using only the rock to assist progress. A feat considered impossible by many. The original route was put up in 1970 by Cesare Maestri and surrounded in controversy. In an act of desperation, Maestri used a compressor to drill bolts into the rock.

Scotland celebrates its first ever John Muir Day. Born 175 years ago, the Scottish-American naturalist, environmentalist and enthusiastic hiker co-founded the Sierra Club (Motto: Explore, enjoy and protect the planet). The club helped establish a number of national parks after he died. The 350-kilometre John Muir Trail and John Muir Wilderness in California’s Sierra Nevada are named after him.

At 2962 metres, the Zugspitze is not only the highest mountain in Germany. It is also something like HANWAG’s alpine home. Several routes lead to the summit – from a long alpine hiking trail to the Jubiläumsgrat, one of the most challenging routes in the Alps. Every year since 2014, HANWAG has invited mountain enthusiasts from all over the world to the HANWAG ALPINE EXPERIENCE and climbs the Zugspitze with them on four different routes.

The digital age stops at nothing – not even mountains can hold it back. For example, New Zealander Matt Jenke hiked seven of his country’ Great Walks with a 360-degree camera in his backpack. It has 15 lenses and takes a photo every 2.5 seconds. By putting the routes on Google Maps, they can now be explored virtually from the other side of the world. And by using the virtual reality action #project360, a number of mountain routes can be followed on screen.

On 3 October 2016, the anniversary of German unification, Brocken Benno climbs the Brocken (1,141 metres) for the 8,000th time. Anyone, sceptical about the authenticity of his ascents should consult the entries for the years 2011, 1987, 1984, 1979, 1975, 1964, 1951 and also 1924.

Alex Honnold climbs the near 1,000-metre high route Freerider on El Capitan (9/9+) free solo. According to National Geographic, his friend and climbing partner Tommy Caldwell calls the achievement “the moon landing of free soloing.” The subsequent film of the climb wins an Oscar in 2019. In addition, scientists discover that Alex Honnold’s amygdala – the part of the brain that generates fear – functions differently than with other climbers.

Heather Anderson completes the Triple Crown of Hiking within a year (see 2008). All in all, she covers the 12,800 kilometres of the three trails in just 251 days – that’s an average of 50 kilometres a day. Maybe even more amazing: In 2018, the nine-year-old boy Christian Geiger walks the last part of the Continental Divide Trail. This means he has also done the Triple Crown. He started out on the Appalachian Trail in 2013 – at the age of five.

Unesco decides to add alpinism to the “List of intangible cultural heritage”. The Unesco website says that it “emphasizes the “values of togetherness and a responsible approach to nature.” The alpine clubs of France, Italy and Switzerland submitted the application.

During the Corona pandemic lockdown, participation in outdoor activities increase significantly. According to the German Ramblers’ Association, 74 per cent of Germany’s hiking trails are seeing “high” or “very high” usage. The downside: In popular spots, there is chaos on the roads.

History continues. We celebrate our 100. anniversary – amongst other things with our HANWAG Heritage Collection.