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Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner in the Nepalese Khumbu region
Photo: Kaltenbrunner archive
Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner is
a legend in
mountain climbing . She was the first woman to climb all fourteen mountains in the world that are higher than 8,000 meters without an oxygen mask.
Reinhold Messner was the
first person to do this
between 1970 and 1986. Kaltenbrunner climbed her first eight-thousander in 1994 and the last, the K2 in the Karakoram Mountains, in 2011. The Austrian will be 50 years old on Sunday.
On the phone she answers with: "Gerlinde."
SPIEGEL:
Ms. Kaltenbrunner, when was the last time you thought of the summit of K2?
Kaltenbrunner:
I think back to the summit quite often.
Almost every day I have a brief moment where any moment of the expedition is present.
It was a summit experience like I rarely had: calm in the most beautiful evening light.
To finally be up there after so many attempts and setbacks;
there was a deep touch, silence and gratitude.
I felt like I was one with everything and everyone.
SPIEGEL:
You were only able to climb K2 for the seventh time and had to turn back in the previous years - where did the motivation come from to keep trying?
Did you want to show the mountain?
Kaltenbrunner:
No, not at all.
I always had a dialogue with the mountain, saying goodbye after every attempt with the thought: Okay, I still have the opportunity to try again.
Only after the 2010 expedition, when Fredrik
(
Fredrik Ericsson
, who fell while attempting to climb together and died, editor's note)
did not come back, did I think of not going back.
It took a while, but I already felt that the K2 is still beating in my heart.
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