Interview with Simon Messner

15.10.2023

Simon Messner was born in South Tyrol in 1990 as the son of mountaineer Reinhold Messner and today works as an alpinist, filmmaker and farmer.

Together with his father, he founded the film production company Messner Mountain Movie in 2017 and looks after two mountain farms in South Tyrol. He was 15 when he made his first climbing attempts in the Dolomites. The passionate sportsman (alpine climbing, ice climbing, winter mountaineering, expeditions, ski tours) travels a lot in the mountains of the world and regularly realises challenging first ascents, for example in Oman, Jordan and Pakistan. He has travelled to Mongolia, Nepal, Antarctica, India and Africa. He lives in South Tyrol with his girlfriend.

Laws vs. free space

Do you think that the mountains can be used for sport and protected at the same time? (Or are we simply ignoring the fact that our heavy consumption is destroying the mountains and the environment?)

I absolutely think that you can protect the mountains and have fun at the same time. Here's a spontaneous idea: If we could manage to better distribute mountain sports enthusiasts, a lot would already be done. Unfortunately, the prestigious mountains like the Matterhorn or Everest are overrun at the moment, but if you look at the surrounding mountains, it's absolutely empty. A better distribution would certainly be the right way to go, but it won't be easy.

On your tours, you are often surrounded by beautiful scenery. Can you enjoy it and what are you personally doing to help protect mountain nature and the climate?

I'm getting more and more involved. I can definitely enjoy it, but on the side, or rather as an afterthought. When you're in the middle of a tour, you're forced to concentrate, but the body absorbs the beauty and only processes the experience in a second step. As a climber, I am the first to put my hand up and say: yes, we climbers produce a relatively large amount of CO2 and are anything but sustainable. Anyone who climbs and is honest knows that. I have an agreement with my girlfriend that I will only go on expeditions every two years, which is a first step. I try to think about the mountain days carefully - in other words, I don't just go there randomly by car like I used to. I had an exciting example of this with my mountain partner Martin Sieberer. We were in Pakistan, the weather was bad, we couldn't do anything. We invested a lot of time and the flight was actually for nothing. We came back and were able to do the Bonatti route on the Matterhorn. We invested three days in this and not three months. That means: if you keep an open mind, there's a lot to do for us.

Do protected areas and restrictions to preserve valuable habitats make sense, or should the mountains generally remain freely accessible - with the demand for personal responsibility?

Unfortunately, personal responsibility is difficult. I now live in Italy again, with laws without end. So I'm not someone who is in favour of laws, not in this great abundance. But when it comes to climate change, I am more and more convinced that, unfortunately, laws are needed. It would also help me personally - and my friends too - if we were given guidelines, tips and pointers on the subject of environmental protection and how to be sustainable when travelling. People would like to do something, but don't know what. Laws or guidelines would help. Yes, there should be room for manoeuvre, but if we humans destroy too much with our masses, we won't be able to manage without laws.