<p>Loretan had been leading a client up the summit ridge of the Grünhorn, a peak in the Bernese Alps, when they fell, the Swiss police said. Loretan died at the scene, the police said. His 38-year-old Swiss client was flown to a hospital and was in serious condition. <br /><br />Loretan was born on April 28, 1959, in Bulle, Switzerland, and began climbing at age 11. He climbed his first 8,000-meter peak, the difficult Nanga Parbat in Pakistan, in 1982. It took him 13 years to make it up the other 13 8,000-meter mountains. <br /><br />Loretan was known to favour quick, lightweight expeditions that minimized the time in which he was exposed to danger. His 1986 ascent of Mount Everest, without bottled oxygen and in a night-time push that took just 40 hours, made headlines in climbing magazines and newspapers. <br /><br />His reputation as one of the world’s top mountaineers was cemented when he climbed Kanchenjunga, in Nepal, the world’s third-highest mountain at 8,586 meters (28,169 feet), in 1985. At that time, only the Italian Reinhold Messner and the Polish mountaineer Jerry Kukuczka had climbed all the 8,000-meter peaks. Last year, the Spanish climber Edurne Pasaban became the 25th, and only the second woman, to achieve that feat. <br /></p>
<p>Loretan had been leading a client up the summit ridge of the Grünhorn, a peak in the Bernese Alps, when they fell, the Swiss police said. Loretan died at the scene, the police said. His 38-year-old Swiss client was flown to a hospital and was in serious condition. <br /><br />Loretan was born on April 28, 1959, in Bulle, Switzerland, and began climbing at age 11. He climbed his first 8,000-meter peak, the difficult Nanga Parbat in Pakistan, in 1982. It took him 13 years to make it up the other 13 8,000-meter mountains. <br /><br />Loretan was known to favour quick, lightweight expeditions that minimized the time in which he was exposed to danger. His 1986 ascent of Mount Everest, without bottled oxygen and in a night-time push that took just 40 hours, made headlines in climbing magazines and newspapers. <br /><br />His reputation as one of the world’s top mountaineers was cemented when he climbed Kanchenjunga, in Nepal, the world’s third-highest mountain at 8,586 meters (28,169 feet), in 1985. At that time, only the Italian Reinhold Messner and the Polish mountaineer Jerry Kukuczka had climbed all the 8,000-meter peaks. Last year, the Spanish climber Edurne Pasaban became the 25th, and only the second woman, to achieve that feat. <br /></p>
