Maximilian Schwarzhuber (30) did it: In the second attempt, the extreme athlete climbed Mont Blanc with two prosthetic legs and thus scaled the Seven Summits of the Alps.
Chamonix – Maximilian Schwarzhuber had both legs amputated in 2017 due to an incurable disease. After always being in pain, he was finally able to walk after getting prosthetic limbs. And that quickly became a competitive sport: after just six months he completed a ten-kilometer run, last year he cycled 1,001 kilometers from Flensburg to Oberstdorf in 48 hours. For this year he has planned to climb the Seven Summits, the seven highest peaks in the Alpine states.
Seven Alpine peaks in twelve weeks
On June 10th, the influencer and motivational speaker from Wolnzach (Upper Bavaria) climbed the Zugspitze (2962 meters) in Germany. This was followed by the Doufourspitze (4634 meters) in Switzerland, the Gran Paradiso (4061 meters) in Italy, the Triglav in Slovenia (2864 meters), the Grauspitz in Liechtenstein (2599 meters) and the Grossglockner (3798 meters) in Austria.
On August 19, Schwarzhuber wanted to scale Mont Blanc (4810 meters), the highest mountain in France and the Alps. “Unfortunately we had to turn back because returning from the summit to our starting point would have been too dangerous.” Schwarzhuber and his climbing partner Alex Daffner (31) from Essenbach near Landshut (Lower Bavaria) had moved into the Refuge Cosmique at an altitude of 3566 meters.
![Maximilian Schwarzhuber struggles through the ice on Mont Blanc.](https://www.merkur.de/bilder/2023/09/05/92502784/32627142-maximilian-schwarzhuber-kaempft-sivh-durch-das-eis-am-montblanc-O5BG.jpg)
A rim of the Mont Blanc glacier blocked the direct route. “We would have had to return via a very steep alternative route on ice,” reports Schwarzhuber. On the way back, the unusual climbing duo rescued a mountaineer from Paris who had left the summit too late and was already suffering from altitude sickness. The Bavarians took the French to the hut.
Route led through dangerous rockfall zone
Schwarzhuber’s motto in life is: “There’s no such thing as giving up.” That’s why there was a second attempt on Sunday. “Instead of returning to the Refuge Cosmique, this time we decided to cross the summit,” reports the Upper Bavarian. After conquering the summit, we took the normal route, the Goûter route to the Nid d’Aigle at 2,372 meters. A mountain railway leads here. But first you have to go through the extremely rockfall-prone Couloir du Goûter. This time, however, Schwarzhuber and Daffner had the mountain guide Thomas Scherzer from Traunstein (Upper Bavaria) with them.
But it wasn’t easy this time either: “There was a lot of fresh snow that was frozen solid. We were the first rope team after two weeks. Sometimes we had to kick away the snow to get to the bare ice. It was super exhausting, it has never been so tricky on any tour.” The altitude also made things difficult for the alpinists, even though they had already acclimatized in the weeks before.
On Sunday the summit photo finally works
On Sunday the time had finally come: “We did it! At 10:26 a.m. today we reached the summit of Mont Blanc (4,810m), the highest mountain in the Alps,” the influencer proudly posted on Facebook.
It took the unusual rope team a full 16 hours to climb the 1,700 meters to the summit, followed by a 2,700 meter descent to the other side. “Without our mountain guide we would not have had a chance. It was really hard! Definitely my most difficult route of the Seven Summits in the Alps,” says Schwarzhuber.
Next, the adventurer wants to try the route from Italy to the Matterhorn. “And then I want to prepare for Iron Man in Hawaii.”
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