IF THE TALE HAD ENDED THERE, the potential discovery of Günther's body might not have attracted attention outside Messner's immediate circle. But the Messner saga on Nanga Parbat has always been much more than a survival story. It's also an enduring mystery, and the seed of a bitter conflict between Messner and several of his teammates on the 18-person German/Austrian expedition that had traveled to Pakistan to scale the mountain.

Within months of the trip's end, tensions between Messner and expedition leader Karl Maria Herrligkoffer, fed by their conflicting versions of what had really happened to Günther, erupted into a series of lawsuits. Messner accused Herrligkoffer of manslaughter and "neglected aid" in his brother's death, and Herrligkoffer accused Messner of libel. The suits' outcomes didn't resolve the underlying acrimony, and, after a period of surface calm, the fracas restarted in 2001 when Messner harshly criticized his former teammates in public, saying they hadn't bothered to search for the missing brothers and, in effect, had failed to render assistance during an emergency. For a mountaineer, whose loyalty to his comrades is supposed to be paramount, it was the worst insult imaginable.

In subsequent months, Messner advanced his attack both in the German media and in The Naked Mountain, his 2002 book about Nanga Parbat, in which he employs a dreamy, semi-hallucinatory style to describe his bewilderment and anguish when his teammates did not come to the rescue.

Angered by the affronts, four Nanga Parbat expedition mates came forward individually with tales of their own. Ending more than 30 years of silence, Hans Saler, Gerhard Baur, Jürgen Winkler, and Max von Kienlin pointed out what they called major discrepancies in Messner's story. Von Kienlin and Saler theorized that Reinhold had split up with Günther near the summit in order to pursue an ambitious, premeditated solo traverse. Messner had even discussed the plan beforehand at base camp, Baur told reporters. The Naked Mountain, the teammates said, was Messner's revisionist attempt to deflect his own guilt.

It got worse. In 2003, Saler's explosive book Between Light and Shadow: The Messner Tragedy on Nanga Parbat offered several alternative theories about how Günther could have died—none of them compatible with Messner's story. That same year, von Kienlin published his own broadside, The Traverse: Günther Messner's Death on Nanga Parbat—Expedition Members Break Their Silence.

Saler, now a 58-year-old mountain guide in Pucón, Chile, and von Kienlin, a 71-year-old baron based in Munich, both speculate that Messner's historic traverse was no emergency bid to save his brother, and that Günther never accompanied Reinhold down the Diamir Glacier. Instead, they posit that Reinhold parted ways with his brother near the summit and set off down the Diamir Face solo, while Günther headed toward the ascent route. Günther might have died in a high bivouac, or in a fall, they conjecture. Perhaps he wasn't even suffering from altitude sickness, and chose to climb back down the Rupal Face—alone.

"Behind Reinhold's story is a big lie," Saler told me in 2003. The team members had spoken up, von Kienlin added, "to defend the honor of comrades who can no longer defend themselves," since at least six of the original 18 were dead.

Over time, the controversy has become the most extraordinary fight in modern-day climbing history—a blood feud that has spawned more than a dozen lawsuits, countless attacks and counterattacks, a revenge theory (stemming from a post-expedition love affair between Messner and von Kienlin's wife), and numerous efforts by Messner to find Günther and vindicate himself.

"It may take ten years, it may take 30 years, but I must find Günther's body," Messner told me in 2003, by which time he'd already made several trips to Nanga Parbat to scour the terrain. "There is no other chance for me to save my reputation."