Andrej Štremfelj

Andrej Štremfelj (born 1956) is a Slovenian mountaineer from Kranj who took up climbing at 16 and became a mountain guide in 1982. On 13 May 1979 he and Nejc Zaplotnik became the first Slovenes and the first Yugoslavs to reach the summit of Mount Everest, and he later climbed Everest again with his wife, becoming part of the first married couple to do so. He also climbed several other eight-thousanders. In 1992 he and Marko Prezelj received the Bloudek Award and the Piolet d'Or for an alpine style ascent of a new route on the south ridge to the south summit of Kangchenjunga, and he later became the first Slovenian, and only the 10th mountaineer in history, to receive the Piolet d'Or Lifetime Achievement Award.