Adrian Ballinger Biography

Adrian Ballinger (born 1 January 1976) is a certified IFMGA/AMGA mountain guide, certified through the American Mountain Guides Association (AMGA Rock, Alpine, and Ski Certifications). Ballinger has been guiding full-time for 15 years, and has led over 100 international climbing expeditions on 5 continents. Ballinger, along with Himalayan Experience's founder, Russell Brice, has been featured on the Discovery Channel’s Everest: Beyond the Limit series. Ballinger worked for Himex until 2012. Ballinger founded Alpenglow Expeditions and has worked as guide for it. Adrian is noted for pioneering the use of pre-acclimation for commercial expeditions as early as 2014, which can cut the amount of on-site time half compared to a typical Everest summit bid expedition. Ballinger has also gone on climbs sponsored by the Eddie Bauer company. In 2016 and 2017 he went on Everest expeditions with Cory Richards, and in 2017 Adrian reached the summit from the Tibet/China/North route without using bottled oxygen.