Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner

About Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner

Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner’s interest in mountaineering was sparked at a young age. The distinctive introduction to the world of mountains was influenced by the parish priest of her

hometown Spital am Pyhrn in Upper Austria – Dr. Erich Tischler. He took Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner on numerous mountain tours after Sunday mass – initially to the local mountains around her hometown. At the age of 13, during her training at the ski school in Windischgarsten, Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner undertook her first

easy climbing tours on the local “Sturzhahn.” In the following years, she seized every opportunity to go mountaineering. Skiing, ice climbing, and climbing tours became her

main interest, which she pursued with great passion alongside her professional training as a nurse in Upper Austria and Vienna.

Her greatest dream – to climb an eight-thousander – came true at the age of 23 with the ascent of the Broad Peak’s summit in Pakistan at an altitude of 8,027 meters.

Since then, the thought of the high and highest mountains has not left her. In the following years, she invested her salary as a nurse in

various expeditions in the Himalayas and Karakoram. After climbing Nanga Parbat in 2003 as her fifth peak over 8000 meters, she fully dedicated herself to professional mountaineering.

Today, Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner has summited fourteen main peaks in the series of eight-thousanders as well as two subsidiary peaks over 8,000 meters. With the ascent of K2, the second-highest mountain on Earth at 8,611 meters, she became the first woman to reach all eight-thousander summits without the use of supplemental oxygen. However, her passion is not solely for the high mountains of the Himalayas. She is also moved and enchanted by the people and their foreign religions and cultures.

Together with her husband Ralf Dujmovits, who was the first German to climb all 14 eight-thousanders, Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner lives in Bühl in the Black Forest.

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