Erhard Loretan, born in Bulle in 1959, Swiss mountain guide and cabinet-maker by profession, is a distinguished and modest new age mountaineer endowed with exceptional strength of mind and displaying an impressive record of difficult climbs, many of them solo-climbs, in the Alps, the Andes, the Himalaya and the Antarctic. He conquered his first eight-thousand-metre peak, Nanga Parbat, at the age of only twenty-three, in 1982, and with the ascent of Kangchenjunga, in 1995, completed the full range of all fourteen eight-thousand-metre peaks. Climbing difficult routes in extreme altitudes in Alpine style, very fast with only a minimum of equipment and food and without oxygen or high-altitude porters, is his passion. He accomplished his exploits without seeking publicity and fulfilled his dreams independently of public or commercial pressure. He has thus opened up new dimensions in mountaineering.
Links to Erhard LoretanBiography Erhard Loretan
Summary of Award Ceremony 1996The Award
