Nina Schlesener

But, her heart beats not only for faraway places, but also for her home, the Berchtesgadener Land. It's there Nina recharges her batteries for new adventures and travels. She says, "the best thing about coming home is when I climb the mountains and get a good snack in the mountain huts and soak up the rays of the sun on the house bench."

Can you share a short backstory on how you got into the outdoors and your particular discipline?

After climbing all the peaks on their normal routes in my youth, I discovered my passion for climbing at the age of 18, which has not let go of me to this day. It soon became clear to me that I wanted to turn my hobby into a profession. The desire to become a mountain guide was also fueled at my parents' mountain hut when the mountain guides gathered there in the summer to go climbing with their guests the next day. Determined as I was, I consistently pursued my plan to become a mountain guide as quickly as possible and was able to successfully complete my training as a state mountain and ski guide as the youngest in Germany, with a record time of two years.

We would love to hear about any of your recent or past achievements in the mountains and outdoors?

The love for the mountains and the homeland awakened in me the desire to turn a hobby into a profession at an early age and so I became Germany's youngest and Berchtesgaden's only state-certified mountain and ski guide. From then on, I've dedicated myself to competitive ice climbing.

In the summer of 2010, I traveled to the USA with my husband at the time, the UIAA mountain guide Christian Schlesener, for a climbing trip. How could it be otherwise, our destination was the "Nose", the classic par excellence on El Capitan in the climbing mecca Yosemite Valley. The spectacular route winds its way through the 1000-metre-high wall of golden-brown granite in a breathtaking setting – more rock, more exposure and more freedom is not possible! We climbed the wall in one day.