Conrad Anker, a renowned expeditionary mountaineer, recently climbed Ulvetanna in Antarctica’s Queen Maud Land with Oscar-winning director and climber Jimmy Chin. He has also summitted Rakekniven, a 2,500-foot wall in Queen Maud Land, in 1997, and the East Face of the Vinson Massif in Antarctica’s Ellsworth Mountains in 2001. He recreated Shackleton’s crossing of South Georgia Island with renowned mountaineers Reinhold Messner and Stephen Venables for the film Shackleton’s Antarctic Adventure. In Patagonia he has scaled the three towers of Patagonia’s famed Cerro Torre group, ascending new routes on both Torre Egger and Cerro Standhardt. In the high Himalaya, Conrad has summited Everest three times, including one on which he discovered the body of legendary explorer George Mallory.
Conrad has been feted internationally—along with partners Jimmy Chin and Renan Ozturk—for their ascent of the Shark’s Fin on 20,700-foot Mount Meru, resulting in the acclaimed film Meru, winner of the documentary Audience Award at Sundance, and an Outside Magazine cover story about Conrad’s drive to climb. As the long-time captain of the The North Face Athlete Team (now retired from that position), Conrad has urged climbers to be the boots on the ground in observing the changes wrought by man-made climate change.
Conrad has joined Wilderness Travel for our Patagonia: Epic Climbers & Conservationists special event, the Perspectives on the Himalayas symposium, and Antarctica: In the Wake of the Great Explorers special event. Conrad and Jennifer Lowe first conceived of the Alex Lowe Charitable Foundation, a non-profit that funds the Khumbu Climbing Center, while accompanying a Wilderness Travel Ultimate Everest trek.