Messner documented the ascent himself, posting a video and a message on his social media profile in which he described the return as a journey to the place where his relationship with the mountain began.
"Today I returned to the rock from which Günther and I saw Nanga Parbat in the distance for the first time. Today I climbed back up there. Here it all began. For me, Nanga Parbat has become much more than just a mountain," Messner wrote.
The peak, which rises to 8,126 metres, remains central to one of the most dramatic chapters in the history of world mountaineering. On 29 June 1970, after reaching the summit, the two brothers began their descent along the opposite face. During the traverse, Günther lost his life, swept away by an ice avalanche.
The anniversary of that climb and the loss of his brother have long shaped how Messner speaks about Nanga Parbat, and his return to the vantage point of 1970 places the memory of Günther at the centre of the occasion.
The ascent he recorded this time was not a climbing feat but a personal pilgrimage: the same rock, seen again decades later, from which the mountain first appeared to the two brothers as a distant shape on the horizon.