Willo Welzenbach

Wilhelm Willo Welzenbach was a German mountaineer and alpinist who lived from 10 November 1900 until 12 or 13 July 1934, when he died on Nanga Parbat attempting the first ascent of the eight-thousander. With Fritz Rigele he made the first ascent of the north-west face of the Großes Wiesbachhorn in Austria, where they were the first mountaineers to use ice-pegs for protection on an ice face. His career total exceeded one thousand summits in the Alps, fifty of them first ascents, and he contributed to the grading of alpine climbs through the Welzenbach scale, which became the UIAA scale of grades I to VI.