Austrian native Robert Schauer is both an expert mountaineer having completed some of the world’s most difficult climbs including a winter summit of Eiger North Face, Gasherbrum IV - West Face, and five of the world’s 8,000 meter peaks -- Mount Everest (twice), Hidden Peak, Nanga Parbat, Makalu and Broad Peak, and an expert filmmaker.
He is the founder and director of the International Mountain and Adventure Film Festival in Graz, Austria and has produced or co-produced a dozen films for Austrian and international television as well as Austria’s tourist board.
Schauer first summited Everest in 1978 as part of a 13 man Austrian expedition led by Wolfgang Nairz, a thirty-nine-year-old journalist from Innsbruck. Wind speed of 125 mile an hour and minus 40° temperatures thwarted an attempt by expedition members to summit without oxygen but on May 3rd Nairz, Schauer, Horst Berghmann and the sirdar Ang Phu attained the peak.
He would return to Everest in 1996 as part of an IMAX filming team, which would capture 2 minutes of footage of the expansive view from Everest’s summit using a 42-pound camera hauled up the mountainside. Along on the expedition helping the IMAX team was also Jamling Tenzing Norgay, the son of Sherpa Tenzing who made the first ascent in 1953 with Sir Edmund Hillary.
