Ellery Schempp of the Pittsburgh Explorer’s Group Nanga Parbat Expedition which was to be the first American group to reach the peak of Nanga Parbat in Pakistan. Schempp, who is retired, currently resides in Boston, Massachusetts. Stephen D. Solomon, a professor at New York University, has written a book about Schempp and the Supreme Court case entitled "Ellery’s Protest: How One Young Man Defied Tradition and Sparked the Battle over School Prayer". On November 26, 1956, Schempp staged a protest against the school requirement that each student read 10 Bible passages and the Lord's Prayer each day during homeroom. That day he
Nanga Parbat was via the Diamir Face, in 1962, by Germans Toni Kinshofer, Siegfried Löw, and A. Mannhardt. The route is now the "standard route" on the mountain. The Kinshofer route does not ascend the middle of the Diamir Face, which is threatened by avalanches from massive hanging glaciers. Instead it climbs a buttress on the left side of the face. In 1970 the brothers Günther and Reinhold Messner made the third ascent of the mountain and the first ascent of the Rupal Face. They were unable to descend by their original route, and instead descended by the Diamir Face, making the