Irmgard Braun

Irmgard Braun, born on 25 February 1952 in Munich, is a German rock climber who competed in sport climbing and competition climbing and is also the author of climbing-themed crime novels. She grew up in Baden-Württemberg and worked as a high school teacher, taking up climbing in her thirties. By the 1980s she was regarded as one of the best sport climbers in Germany, with several first free ascents in the Upper Danube Valley, including Kater Garfield at grade VIII in 1984, and alpine routes such as the north face of Les Droites. After a knee injury she turned to shorter routes and joined the German national competition climbing team, winning the Stuttgart Sport Climbing Cup in 1991. She later worked as an editor for Alpin-Magazin and other publications, published her first crime novel in 2014, and is known as a role model for older climbers through ascents of routes graded 5.12d in her late sixties and seventies.