One of the greatest, if not the greatest, high-altitude climbers in the world, Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner turned the 50 on October 13th. What should we write about Gerlinde?

After she reached the summit of K2 on August 23, 2011, she was the third woman, after Oh Eun-sun from South Korea and Edurne Pasaban from Spain, who has climbed all fourteen eight-thousanders. But she was the first woman who managed to do this without using additional oxygen and without the support of high sherpas.

Already in 1994 she stood on the 8,028 m high pre-summit of Broad Peak and at the „tender“ age of 23 she reached such a (pre) summit over 8,000 m for the first time. Four years later she was on the first real eight-thousander, the summit of Cho Oyu (8188 m).

Photo: (c) Archiv Kaltenbrunner