Chomolungma

Mount Everest, also called Chomolungma or Qomolangma or Sagarmatha.

This weekend we went to a lecture of a Belgian guy, Robert Huygh, who climbed the Mount Everest. I have always been fascinated by the Mount Everest and the stories of people who tried to climb it.

Photo by Star Trooper

Different attempts to the top have been made.
One of the first attempts was by George Mallory and Andrew Irvine, both of the United Kingdom, made an attempt on the summit via the north col/north ridge route from which they never returned.

Controversy has raged as to whether the duo may have summited 29 years before the confirmed ascent (and of course, safe descent) of Everest by Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay in 1953.

During the 1996 climbing season, fifteen people died trying to reach the summit, making it the deadliest single year in Everest history. Eight of them died on May 11 alone. The disaster gained wide publicity and raised questions about the commercialization of Everest.

A lot of people died on the Everest. I think it’s an understatement to say that it’s possible to tell stories for days about fatal climbs.
But there is one story I would really like to tell. First of all because I think it’s really amazing what he did, second because it’s about the sport I love and I live for, snowboarding.
The story is about a snowboarder, Marco Siffred. What does a snowboarder has to do with the Mount Everest? Well for people who didn’t know this. There have been several attempts of ascending the Everest on a snowboard.

On the 9th of September, a French snowboarder Marco Siffredi stood 8,849 meters above sea level on the summit of Mount Everest, marking his second successful ascent of the mountain in just over a year. He had made the first snowboard descent ever from the world’s highest summit along the Norton Couloir, a corridor above the North Col. He rode roughly 5,300 meters down before reaching Base Camp.

Photo by Mahatma4711

In September 2002 he returned to the mountain to descend an even more challenging route: the Hornbein Couloir. The corridor is the steepest of all potential lines on Everest, with 45- to 55-degree slopes the entire way. The Sherpas on the expedition had already descended, but one waited 3,000 meters below, where he could see about 90 percent of Siffredi’s intended route.

It should have taken him only a few hours to reach one of the Sherpas at the bottom of the Hornbein Couloir. The two would have slept there that night and headed for base camp the next day. Marco never returned. A search and efforts, made by the French government, have found no sign of him other than tracks that fade just 350 meters below the summit.

One day, I’m planning to go there myself. Of course not to climb the Everest to the summit, but I really want to go to the Base Camp of the Everest, and maybe, who knows Advanced Base Camp one day…

Photo by Mahatma4711