1963 THE IDEA OF A TREKKING POLE
At the same time, Peter Habeler was a young, ambi- tious mountaineer in the Alps of Zillertal, Austria. This generation of mountaineers was looking for the final frontier of high-altitude climbing – reaching 8000m peaks without oxygen. His idols were Austrian climbing legends Hermann Buhl and Mathias Rebitsch. Both used skiing poles for their climbs and greatly influenced the younger generation. The pole was part of the essential gear for leading mountaineers in the Alps even back in the 50s and by no means a modern innovation. It was natural for Peter to follow in their footsteps. "I attribute my healthy and strong knees to the fact that I used poles early in my life," Peter says today. "Poles were always part of my life as a mountaineer" Peter Habeler remem- bers that hikers and tourists in the Alps laughed at the young mountaineer when they saw him walking with poles. "You forgot your skis." It was likely a joke invented in that era and repeated many thousand times across the globe in the years to come. That laughter did not distract Peter and other climbers from the poles' benefit, making it an integral part of their mountaineering gear. When Peter first met Reinhold Messner, he noticed that the South Tyrolian had developed the same taste for poles.
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