#41 – How ski-mountaineer Tamara Lunger first faced death then never stopped exploring

The Role Models Podcast

Tamara Lunger is a high-altitude ski mountaineer. A big Thank You to The North Face for making it possible for us to record this episode with Tamara. Tamara was born in Bolzano, northern Italy, as the daughter of ski mountaineer, Hansjörg Lunger, she started ski mountaineering in 2002. Since 2009, Tamara has been a high-altitude climber meaning she makes her ascents without oxygen. On 23 May 2010, Lunger became the youngest ever female climber (aged 23 years, 11 months, and 17 days), to have reached the main summit of Lhotse. By the age of 30 she had climbed two of the world’s four highest mountains (K2 and Lhotse) this was despite injuries and afflictions that meant every step taken was in pain. In this incredible episode Tamara tells us what it’s like to traverse some of the world’s most punishing summits, all whilst under considerable physical pain and mental stress. Within this, Tamara generously describes: - Coming face-to-face with death and the life-changing experience that resulted - How she prepares mentally about the fact she may potentially not return from a trip - How she’s helped exhume dead bodies and body parts in order to take them back down a mountain - How she overcame her ego and turned around just 70m from the top of a mountain summit - How she separates the fear of doing something from its end experience (if she knows it will be beneficial) After some action-packed years of adventure, Tamara is currently in a period of reflection, meditation, and physical recovery which she also speaks about later on in the episode. Find out more about Tamara’s achievements: http://www.tamaralunger.com/en/index.php And follow her story on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tamaralunger If sports, adventure and their positive affects on the mind are all themes you want to explore then you’ll find more Role Models episodes on the topics here: https://www.rolemodels.co/podcast/language:english-only/category:sports-athletes/ Thanks to Samsung NEXT for supporting this episode. Find out more about their mission to support entrepreneurs: http://samsungnext.com/berlin A big thanks also to our Patreon patrons who support this podcast: - Megan Quinn, General Partner at Spark Capital who supports the organization: http://www.code2040.org/ - Anna Caroline, a leadership coach based out of Berlin that you can find on truthcircles.com - Emma Harris And please follow Role Models! On Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_rolemodels/ On Twitter: https://twitter.com/rolemodels