In amazement the others observe Finskei, while they are burning the tent and prepare for descent. He forces himself upward, meter by meter, ever higher in the deadly wall. Several times he seems to come close to falling, but it is just an illusion, a trick of the light, a hallucination of the oxygen deprived brain. A frequent occurecne at high altitude, and the Österberg is no exception.

Epilogue

It will be hours until the people employed by the city to clean up the streets will find Finskei's camera in a garbage bin. The last pictures are disturbing documents. They show a starved, desperate Reinhold Finskei, devouring the "Yak". Without seasoning, and raw!

And then, on the very last picture, it looms, majestically out of reach: the Österbergtower. Did Finskei reach it? Climb it, even? Or did he fail, did he die in the attempt, quite possibly of "Yak" poisoning? Did he find his grave in a crack on the outside of the tower, conserved by the icy winds at this enormous height?

No matter what the answer, his life's achievements stand unsurpassed, a testament to human endurance.