Tomaz Humar's obit from the Guardian

Tomaz Humar broke into Himalayan climbing in 1994 with an ascent of Ganesh V (6,986m) in Nepal under the leadership of Stane Belak, known as Šrauf, a bullish giant of Slovenian mountaineering. The ascent had that element of explosive drama that came to be associated with Humar. A first summit bid failed, Šrauf fell into a crevasse and a third climber damaged his ribs; but when Šrauf decided to call off the expedition Humar screamed for one more shot. Šrauf accompanied his headstrong protégé to the summit, but then had to coax and shepherd the severely dehydrated Humar down the mountain. Without Šrauf's fatherly care, Humar's career could have ended on Ganesh V. A year later, on a Mountaineering Association of Slovenia expedition, it was Sherpa Arjun who hauled the Slovene into a tent high on Annapurna I and revived him with liquids after Humar had reached the 8,091m summit alone in the dark – his first eight-thousander.

Humar was entering his storm years: May 1996 saw him and Vanja Furlan make the first ascent of the north-west face of Ama Dablam, at 6,812m the Matterhorn of the Nepal Khumbu; November the same year he made the first ascent of Bobaye (6,808m) in western Nepal, solo in alpine-style – the purest form, no Sherpas, no fixed camps and no fixed ropes; returning with friends to the Khumbu in 1997 he achieved a trilogy, a first ascent of the north-east face of Lobuche East (6,119m), an ascent of Pumori (7,165m) and the previously unattempted 2,500m south face of Nuptse W2 (7,742m); and in 1998 a 15-day solo assent of Reticent Wall on the vertical granite of El Capitan in California's Yosemite Valley – a very different type of climbing to the snow and ice of the Himalaya.

Most noteworthy of the above are the Ama Dablam climb, for which Humar and Furlan were awarded what is, for some, alpinism's highest accolade, the French Piolet d'Or (Furlan fell to his death in Slovenia's Julian Alps before the ceremony) and the south face of Nuptse W2. Without a rope, Humar and Janez Jeglic fought their way up ice as steep as 80 degrees in ferocious weather, reaching Nuptse's summit ridge in five days. There, Jeglic disappeared, blown from the ridge. Humar had to down-climb the 2,500m face alone, an extraordinary feat but one that became tainted by ugly murmurings back home, where Jeglic was a popular figure. Had the wrong man returned? Humar was idolised by Slovenians in general but within the climbing community there was growing resentment and cynicism.

Humar, though, had a knack of answering his detractors with the audacity of his climbs. In autumn 1999 he climbed the 4,000m south face of Dhaulagiri I (8,167m) solo in nine days. Rheinhold Messner, who had attempted the route in 1977 and had deemed it impossible, greeted Humar on his hero's return to Ljubljana and anointed him as the "greatest high-altitude climber in the world", a title Messner had once guarded. Humar's progress up what he would call the Mobitel route, after his main sponsor, could be followed all the way on the internet – neither the name nor the self-promotion endearing him to those who believe that alpinism is best practised out of the limelight. Humar was decorated by the Slovenian president with the country's highest honour, the Honorary Emblem of Freedom, and there were awards for the film Dhaulagiri Express, made by Humar's loyal companion, the Croat Stipe Bozic.

Stephen Goodwin