Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner

Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner (born 1970) is an Austrian mountaineer who, in August 2011, became the second woman to climb the fourteen eight-thousanders and the first woman to do so without using supplemental oxygen or high-altitude porters. In 2012 she won the National Geographic Explorer of the Year Award. Her interest in climbing developed young, and by the age of 13 she had completed climbing tours at the local Sturzhahn. While training as a nurse in Vienna she kept up her skills on numerous ski, ice and rock-climbing tours, and at 32, after climbing her fourth 8,000 metre peak, Nanga Parbat, she decided to pursue professional mountain climbing full time.