Mountains in My Heart: A Passion for Climbing

Kaltenbrunner, Gerlinde

Softcover

ISBN 10: 159485856X ISBN 13: 9781594858567

Publisher: Mountaineers Books, 2014

• - First woman--and only the fourth climber ever--to summit all fourteen 8,000-meter peaks without supplemental oxygen or high-altitude porters


• - Though the two climbers are friends, Kaltenbrunner's path to high places has been very different from Edurne Pasaban's record-breaking feat


• - Positive, uplifting account of a remarkable athlete

Effusive, charismatic, tough, Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner is one of the world's most successful high-altitude mountaineers and the first woman to climb all fourteen 8,000-meter peaks without supplemental oxygen----and she also eschews high-altitude porters.

Mountains in My Heart covers her early years learning to climb in Austria, her personal life, her training as an oncology nurse, and her ever-present passion for mountains, especially the Himalaya. Her love of being in the mountains shines through in her writing: For Gerlinde the important thing was not the race to be the first woman to climb the 8,000-meter peaks, but rather to experience the mountains and climb them in her self-sufficient style. Self-sufficiency did not, however, mean climbing without her husband, Ralf Dujmovits; in 2009, Lhotse became her twelfth and his fourteenth 8,000-meter peak!

Kaltenbrunner shares the challenges, dangers, and euphoria of her high-altitude climbs, detailing medical emergencies and her own feelings about being high in the mountains. Her writing is honest, captivating, and unrestrained.

About the Author:

Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner was born in 1970 in Kirchdorf, Krems, Austria. She climbed her first 8,000-meter mountain, Broad Peak in Pakistan, at the age of twenty-three. She reached its lower peak (a mere 8,027 meters); it was not until 2007 that she reached the official summit at 8,047 meters. Between expeditions, she conducts a variety of tours, including rock-climbing, ice-walking, and skiing, in the eastern and western Alps. She lives with her husband, extreme mountaineer Ralf Dujmovits, in Germany's Black Forest.