Reinhold Messner: When I was beginning the solo ascent of Mount Everest, it was after two and a half months being there — because I tried just a month after reaching the base camp, but it was monsoon time. So many snow was in the mountain — very big danger for avalanches. So at 7,000 meters, I decided to go down. I went further north because there the monsoon could not reach the mountains, and I could still train and acclimatize. And when the monsoon stopped for a while — it was a monsoon break — I went back to the base camp. I was prepared mentally. I was prepared physically perfectly, and I started being able, with my rucksack, to be out dark [sic], self-sufficient for more or less ten days.