New Route on Everest: North Face

[C-dale]

Route is in Progress.

From Everest News:

"Update: May 16th In our Arun International Everest expedition, the two members name by TOMAS KENNETH OLSSON & TORMOD GRANHEIM including the Tsering pande bhote & Lama Babu Sherpa (Climbing Guides) has made the successful summit victory over the Mt Everest on 16th of may 2006.

As their plan, Tomas & Tromod are skiing down from the summit from the Norton couloir’s. Arun Treks & Expedition expressed our hearty CONGRATULATION to all the Everest Summiteers & want to safe coming down to BC.

Background: Two Vikings are getting prepared. In about one year the ambition is to stand on the summit of Everest, take a deep breath in the thin air, point the skis toward Tibet and ski down the north face of Everest. The ultimate first ski descent from the summit of the highest peak in the world.

Swedish Tomas Olsson and Norwegian Tormod Granheim do not come empty-handed. Their ski adventures together have taken them to an 8000 meter high summit and down close to 60° steep slopes.

The most recent adventure, September & October 2004, was a ski descent of Cho Oyu (8201 meters) in Tibet. They both managed to make “clean” ski descents of the sixth highest peak in the world. They did not use supplementary oxygen and not high altitude porters during the expedition. In addition they managed to make an uninterrupted ski descent from the summit at 8201 meters to 6400 meters without using ropes or any other climbing gear."

[C-dale]

I think the route is on the lookers left side.

[Meathelmet]

They did it.

2400m of vert.


Respect.


Link in swedish : http://www.freeride.se/content/970/

[C-dale]

!!!!!!!!!!!!

[ak_powder_monkey]

those guys rule!!

[Camel Toad]

2400m of vert.

quality quad burn right there!

[summit]

That is a truly amazing feat!

[Armadillo]

Sorry to bring bad news to this thread, especially on my first post here but there appears to have been an accident during the descent.

http://www.mounteverest.net/news.php?id=2029

doesn't look good.

[ak_powder_monkey]

shit anchor failure on rappel that fucking sucks

[Lok]

http://everytrail.net/blog/tomas/2006/05/

Tomas Olsson is missing on the North Face of Everest. He fell at approximately 8500 meter when a rope that they used for a rappel broke loose. Tormod Granheim was with him and climbed after him, but was not able to find him.

Tormod and Fredrik Schenholm are now heading towards the foot of the North Face to look for Tomas.

I am very sorry to have to report this sad news, and I am extremely sad that the information I received yesterday turned out to be incorrect. Let's hope for the best. I am now going to make phone calls to Everest Army basecamp, that is located near the foot of the North Face, to see if they can be of any help.

This is just horrible. More than 24 hours, possibly injured, on the Everest North Face. Is there any hope?

[ak_powder_monkey]

theres still hope think touching the void!

[summit]

Where is that Astro-B3 that landed on Everest's summit?

put a winch on it and hop to pronto!

Google says the highest helicopter rescue was at 6100m.

Everest has a 10% mortality rate.

[KevinDineen]

Fuck, this sucks! I met him briefly when I was in Cham, and we were waiting for him to report in on this trip. The day we met, he seemed super chill, like most good mountaineers, just really calm and poised. I hope they find him soon, and he's ok.

Here's link and excerpt from the interview Weav did with him in Feb, for those who want to know more about this quest.



What are your biggest concerns?
Olsson: It’s so high, everything is extremely slow. It’s very, very exposed and your head isn’t really clear. Even when you are moving slow, you have to think a lot about every move. We are giving ourselves quite a large margin of time and a lot of time to get down. We have 5-6 weeks to wait for good weather. The odds are quite low that the ski down will be doable—that there will be enough snow on the north face—so we will be quite lucky if we are able to do it. So all that together creates some concerns. But at the same time, we are well-prepared for this trip. It’s not a do or die; we are going to be smart about it. Everyday skiing in Chamonix is a potential risk.

http://www.powdermag.com/features/on...verest-olsson/

[davidof]

New Route is in Progress.

Didn't Siffredi board the Norton in 2001?

[Meathelmet]

Didn't Siffredi board the Norton in 2001?

Yes.
And he vanished trying to board the hornblein couloir, wich is apparently the coloir on the right hand side of the pic.

In some text someone mentioned the amount that marco boarded in the norton as 5300m. Intresting...
I mean,the base camp on tibetian side cant be at 3500 meters?

Eh?




Here is something in swedish : http://www.aftonbladet.se/vss/nyhete...827363,00.html

Tormod Granheim (who skied with tomas) ,Olof Sundström and Martin Letzter (who skied the N-face couple days before,apparently via a different route?) are trying to find him. They are at high base camp at 6400m and launching the effort from there.

[davidof]

Yes.
And he vanished trying to board the hornblein couloir, wich is apparently the coloir on the right hand side of the pic.

The Hornbein looks like the perfect line but must be extremely dangerous.

akpm >> theres still hope think touching the void!

Yes but the accident was over 8000m, if you are injured at this altitude I don't think you would survive for long.

[C-dale]

more info from mounteverst.net:

"Tomas Olsson is still missing on Everest north face, after falling at a rock outcrop Tuesday. The accident took place about two hours after the climbers summited the mountain: In a call from the top, they had reported a very hard climb up in a 14 hour push through a snow storm. "I hope we will be strong enough to ski down the north face," Tomas said.

A Norwegian news source was among the last to talk to the climbers, a few hours after their summit: Tomas and Tormod had entered the Great Couloir, and reported that they felt incredibly tired, and were negotiating the hardest skiing conditions they had ever faced.

Very steep section

Shortly after, the two skiers encountered a 50 ft rock section at about 8500 meters and began rappelling down. Suddenly the anchor broke and Tomas fell, continuing to slide down the wall. Tormod immediately climbed down after him but found only Tomas ice axe. Climbers who have been in the area say that the section is so steep that a fall not arrested by a rock is likely to end at the foot of the mountain, in deep soft snow.

Tormod proceeded to climb down to ABC alone, in what must have been a very scary solo descent.

In terms of difficulty, Everest north face is very different from the north ridge where the normal climbing route goes. The Great (Norton) Couloir has only been summited once: On October 3, 1984, Australians Tim Macartney-Snape and Greg Mortimer climbed the Great Couloir to the summit without using oxygen. A woman, star mountaineer guide American Marty Hoey lost her life there on May 15 1982, vanishing in a fall.

Snowboarding and skiing down Everest

Marco Siffredi snowboarded down the Norton Couloir in 2001, after summitting through the normal route with Himex. Only one year later, on September 8, 2002 Marco attempted a snowboard descent of the steep Hornbein Couloir. He arrived at the summit at approximately 2:00 p.m. and waited for about an hour for the clouds to dissipate before starting on his way down. Teammate Olivier Besson watched Siffredi through a telescope at Advanced Base Camp. At about 3:30 p.m., Siffredi slipped from view and was never seen nor heard from again.

There have been 15 ski descents from Everest before, but only one complete - from summit to BC: On October 7, 2000 Davo Karnicar skied down from the summit on Everest south side. Hans Kammerlander skied down the north side in May 1996, but his descent was from 7800m and not complete.

...

Olsson and Granheim had been training hard all winter in the French Alps for the Everest challenge. They both lived in Chamonix, where they skied many of the classic lines. They skied down Cho Oyu in 2004 and rehearsed for the project in fall 2003 by skiing from the summit of two 7000+ mountains, Muztagh Ata (7546m) & Kuksay Peak (7186m) in China.

A small search party of Tomas's expedition members and fellow Swedish climbers was planned yesterday, but considering the area of the fall, locating Tomas is deemed to possibly prove difficult according to other Everest north face climbers.

The current search party involves Tomas team mates Tormod Granheim and Fredrik Schenholm (the expedition photographer), and Swedish duo Olof Sundström/Martin Letzter who summited Everest the same night but skied down easier sections. Yesterday, they were at 6400 meter getting ready to climb back up for Tomas and expected to take up to 4 days to comb through the area. Also the Everest West ridge climbing team has been contacted and asked to search the area with binoculars."

[Ripzalot]

crap. sad news.

RIP Tomas.


EDIT: another update here: http://www.mounteverest.net/news.php?id=2057

[rangle]

Tragic. Many skiers have learned to know this very sympathic sweed. RIP Tomas. Norwegian updated info here: (Tormod reports to a friend of him who is a journalist in that newstation, latest update is that they`ve managed to organize a searchhelicopter which is waiting for a go from Chineese authoroties in Katmandu, and an extra groundsearch team is getting ready to go in on Saturday)

http://www.nettavisen.no/friluftsliv...icle640477.ece

[hemas]

RIP Thomas,

According to a swedish newspaper, his body was found by two sherpas at roughly 6700m.

For swedish speakers, here's the whole story:
http://www.aftonbladet.se/vss/nyhete...828854,00.html

[KANUTTEN]

Terrible to hear. One more of already too many accidents that have occured this year. My thoughts go to his family and close ones.

[summit]

Terrible to hear. One more of already too many accidents that have occured this year. My thoughts go to his family and close ones.

For sure it is tragic, but if you take extreme risks, accidents will happen frequently and are to be expected. Climbing Everest has a 10% mortality rate... much less a new route + skiing.

Basically what I am saying is that if you think this is one too many of an accident, you will have to make these pioneers stop pioneering.

[KANUTTEN]

Accidents are a part of the game at that level, agreed.

When accident strikes though, it is tragic nontheless.