Conrad Anker


Conrad Anker is an American rock climber, mountaineer, and author. He was the team leader of The North Face climbing team for 26 years until 2018. In 1999, he located George Mallory's body on Everest as a member of a search team looking for the remains of the British climber who was last seen in 1924.

Career

After discovering George Mallory’s body on Everest in 1999, Anker returned to Everest with British climbing prodigy Leo Houlding in the 2007 Altitude Everest expedition to discover the truth about Mallory and to unravel the mysteries surrounding his disappearance. Anker and his climbing partner retraced Mallory and Irvine's footsteps and took on the Second Step without the use of the fixed ladder; free climbing it with the use of some modern safety precautions, to evaluate if Mallory would have been capable of climbing the Second Step himself in 1924.
Anker was the team leader of The North Face climbing team for 26 years until 2018.

Personal life

Anker had a heart attack in 2016 during an attempted ascent of Lunag Ri with David Lama. He was flown via helicopter to Kathmandu where he underwent emergency coronary angioplasty with a stent placed in his proximal left anterior descending artery. Afterwards he retired from high altitude mountaineering, but otherwise he continues his work.
Anker married Jennifer Lowe-Anker in 2001, becoming the stepfather of her three sons—Max, Sam, and Isaac Lowe—from her marriage to the late climber Alex Lowe, who had died on expedition with Anker in 1999. The family’s journey was chronicled in Max Lowe’s National Geographic documentary Torn .
They divorced in 2024.
He lives in Bozeman, Montana.

Ascents and expeditions

Anker has also climbed notable routes in Yosemite Valley, Zion National Park, Baffin Island, and the Ellsworth Mountains in Antarctica.

Writings

  • Films

  • Shackleton's Antarctic Adventure
  • Light of the Himalaya. At the heart of the planet's most formidable mountain range live people who suffer from the highest rates of cataract blindness on the planet. The North Face athletes join eye surgeons from Nepal and America in hopes of making a difference. The film follows the doctors' work on the Himalayan Cataract Project all the way to the summit of a 21,000-foot Himalayan giant.
  • The Endless Knot. Directed by Michael Brown and produced by David D'Angelo, an HDTV documentary film with Rush HD and The North Face. In October 1999, Alex Lowe and Conrad Anker were buried by an avalanche in the Tibetan Himalaya. Anker barely survived the avalanche, but was overcome with Survivor's Guilt. In the months following the tragedy, he worked to comfort Lowe's widow, and eventually they unexpectedly found love.
  • The Wildest Dream, IMAX, directed by Anthony Geffen, Altitude Films, US distribution, National Geographic Entertainment releasing.
  • Meru, a 2015 documentary film about climbing the Shark's fin route of Meru Central
  • National Parks Adventure, a short IMAX film/documentary by MacGillivray Freeman about the National Park Service.
  • Lunag Ri, a documentary film by Joachim Hellinger about the attempted ascent of the Lunag Ri by Conrad Anker and David Lama
  • Black Ice, which premiered at the fifteenth Reel Rock festival, features a crew of aspiring ice climbers who travel from the Memphis Rox gym to the frozen wilds of Montana, where mentors Manoah Ainuu, Conrad Anker and Fred Campbell share their love of winter adventure in the mountains.
  • Torn, a documentary film by Max Lowe about the death of his father, Alex Lowe, and subsequent relationship and marriage between his mother, Jennifer Lowe-Anker, and Anker.

    Awards

  • 2008 – Simon Scott-Harden Award for Environmental Design Excellence – Batch 44
  • 2010 – David A Brower Award – American Alpine Club
  • 2015 – George Mallory Award –
  • 2016 – – Lifetime Achievement – Climbing magazine
  • 2017 – Honorary Doctorate at the University of Utah
  • 2018 – Jack Roberts Lifetime Achievements Award – Cody, WY Ice Festival