In 2016, a 30-year-old Italian alpinist named Tamara Lunger was just 70 meters from Nanga Parbat’s 8,126-meter summit and less than 30 minutes from becoming the first woman to make a first winter ascent of an 8,000-meter peak unsupported and without oxygen. She could have made a push for the summit, but she knew she’d be too depleted to descend on her own.
Her partner, legendary winter alpinist Simone Moro, called the selfless decision the smartest, most generous, and ethical decision he’d seen in his career. “She denied herself the summit to avoid putting us in danger,” says Simone. “It would be like you are close to winning an Olympic medal, and two meters before the finish line, you stop, turn around, and help someone in trouble. It was really incredible to witness.”
When Tamara was a 14-year-old girl living in the South Tyrol region of Italy, she announced that one day she would climb an 8,000-meter mountain. In 2010, at the age of 23, she accomplished her childhood dream and became the youngest woman to summit Lhotse, the fourth highest peak in the world. In 2014, Tamara climbed K2 (without oxygen), only the second Italian woman to do so. And in 2018, Tamara displayed a true tolerance for suffering when she joined Simone on an expedition the winter alpinist billed as the “coldest climb in history, on the coldest mountain on the planet.” The pair summited 3,147-meter Pik Pobeda in the remote Chersky Range of Siberia in February, marking the peak’s first winter ascent.
Tamara’s first mentor in the mountains was her father, Hansjorg Lunger, a local ski mountaineering legend in their hometown of Bolzano. One of Tamara’s teachers, the wife of Simone Moro, noticed her unique focus, maturity and passion for the mountains at a young age. In 2002, Tamara started ski mountaineering racing, becoming Italian champion in 2006, long-distance world champion in 2008 and winning the famed Pierra Menta race in 2007 and 2008. Ready for a new challenge, a 22-year-old Tamara joined Simone on an expedition to Cho Oyu, the sixth highest mountain in the world, in 2009. A border closing cancelled the climb, but Tamara returned the following year on her own and soloed the peak to 7,750 meters before turning around after making her record-breaking ascent of Lhotse.
Accomplishments:
- Pik Pobeda (3147m, Siberia), first winter ascent, 2018
- Nanga Parbat (8126m, Pakistan), 70m from summit, 2016
- K2 (8611m, Pakistan), 2014