He was barely a teenager when he began climbing and, after obtaining his first job as a truck driver, decided he loved cliffs more than highways.

He became famous in 1982 after La Vie au bout des doigts, a documentary by Jean-Paul Janssen depicting him free-soloing in Buoux.

[7] After a near-fatal fall in 1995 from a steep-sided cove in southern France, Edlinger suffered a brief cardiac arrest.

He settled close to Verdon Gorge, where the vacation rental he ran with his Slovakian-born wife Matia, Gîte l'Escales in La Palud-sur-Verdon, became a starting-point for rock climbers.

The French minister of sports and youth, Valérie Fourneyron, said of Edlinger, "Patrick was a pioneer in France for free climbing at a high level, a man who had a thirst for the absolute challenge.