Niklas Sommer

Niklas Sommer was born and raised in Garmisch-Partenkirchen. His father repaired cable car ropes, his mother baked pretzels at the shop by the station. By eighteen, Niklas had put on the mountain trooper uniform, and later joined the alpine rescue service. He is thirty-four now. In summer he guides people over the ridges of the Wetterstein and Karwendel, in winter he analyzes snow profiles at lectures in Munich and takes shifts at the climbing gym on Thalkirchner Strasse.

His Munich apartment in Schwabing smells of ski wax. Heavy boots are always drying in the hallway, topographic maps crowd the shelves, and a ginger cat named Käfer sleeps right on a rolled-up down sleeping bag. Niklas speaks with a soft Bavarian accent. He switches to English easily but quickly steers the conversation back to German. He insists that cases stick in your memory only when you have twenty kilos of gear on your back and a damp wind in your face.

Talking with him feels like an evening at a mountain hut. He sorts through slings, curses cheap carabiners, checks the barometer, and along the way explains the difference between "steil" and "schroff". He'll correct a wrong article without a trace of mockery but will make you say the whole phrase three times. Praise from him is rare, but his terse "gut gemacht" is worth a lot.