Legendary Swiss mountaineer dies in climbing fall

Swiss mountain guide Erhard Loretan, one of the few climbers to reach the summits of all 14 of the world's peaks above 8,000 metres, has died in a climbing fall on his 52nd birthday.

Swiss police said yesterday that Mr Loretan died leading a client up the summit ridge of the Grunhorn, in the Bernese Alps. The accident occurred on Thursday. The pair had skied up part of the way, then roped up for the final ascent.

They then both fell for unknown reasons, about 12,500 feet up the 13,264-foot peak. Mr Loretan died at the scene, police said. His 38-year-old Swiss client was flown to a hospital in serious condition. Police are investigating the incident.

Mr Loretan began climbing at age 11. He climbed his first 8,000m (26,000ft) peak, Pakistan's Nanga Parbat, in 1982. It took him 13 years to make it up the 13 other 8,000m peaks.

His 1986 ascent of Mount Everest, without bottled oxygen and in a night-time push that took just 40 hours, stunned the climbing world and made headlines.

It also cemented his reputation as one of the world's top mountaineers after becoming the third person, behind Italian Reinhold Messner and Polish mountaineer Jerry Kukuczka, to climb all the 8,000m peaks.