Ludwig Purtscheller

Ludwig Purtscheller (1849 to 1900) was an Austrian mountaineer and teacher who pioneered climbing without a mountain guide, who in the 19th century did all the route finding and lead climbing. By the end of his life he had recorded climbing over 1,700 mountains. He is best known as the first European to ascend Kilimanjaro, in 1889 with the German mountaineer Hans Meyer, and a celebrated climb was the 1885 traverse of the Meije with the Zsigmondy brothers, still a classic alpine route. On 25 August 1899 an ice axe broke during a descent of the Aiguille du Dru and the rope team fell into a bergschrund; he was injured, contracted pneumonia during his recovery and died, and W. A. B. Coolidge called him the greatest mountaineer who had ever lived.