Mountains in My Heart

A Passion for Climbing

  • 304 pages
  • Mountaineers Books
  • 978-1-59485-856-7
  • May 21, 2014

Paperback / softback

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Description

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. 

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Details
  • 304 pages
  • Mountaineers Books
  • 978-1-59485-856-7
  • May 21, 2014
Reviews
  • And while there is no shortage of good books written by climbers who are passionate about the sport; this book is a treatise on passion itself. Revealed throughout the book is the soul of this exceptional mountaineer, entirely driven by the pure joy of climbing at altitude – nothing more – and this positive obsession plays out through the chapters as pure passion.
    — Himalayan Journal