Her achievements speak for themselves: she’s the best on ice! Hailing from Alto Adige, she has collected three world titles and two World Cups in ice climbing during her career. With a degree in agricultural sciences in her pocket, Angelika Rainer has a passion for the mountains that extends far beyond competitions.

Her love of the mountains began early, when she and her mother began to frequent the pastures and the peaks near their home, overlooking Merano. Experiences that filled her with curiosity about this world made up of woods and streams but also crests, pinnacles, and vertiginous walls to which she felt a mysterious attraction. A way of experiencing the mountains that took deep root in her when, at the age of 10, she put on her first harness and touched the rock along a via ferrata. Two years later, a climbing gym opened in Merano, offering Angelika the opportunity to fully experience her passion — and to discover that she knew what to do with both chalk and ice axes. So, in 2008, she achieved her first victory in the ice climbing World Cup, while in 2012 and 2015 she conquered the general classification.

But Angelika Rainer is not just results and rankings. Her passion leads her in search of the most fascinating and challenging ice climbing, mixed, and drytooling routes in the world. From “A Line Above the Sky,” which cemented her place as the first woman to climb D15, to Piz Ciavazes, where she was the first woman to free climb the “Italia 61” route.