Climber vanishes during ski stunt on Everest
Kathmandu : A ski stunt attempted by a pair of Scandinavian climbers on Mt Everest, the highest peak in the world, turned into tragedy with one of them vanishing after a fall above 8,000 m in the freezing desert known as the Death Zone.
Victory turned hollow for Swede Tomas Kenneth Olsson, who summited the 8,848 m high peak Tuesday but took a tumble while trying to create a world record for the first ski descent and went missing.
Olsson and his partner Norwegian Tormod Granheim were planning to create a world record by climbing up Mt Everest from the north via Tibet and then coming down skiing.
They reached the summit without any mishap around noon Tuesday and after strapping on their skis began coming down when disaster struck.
According to the website Mounteverest.net that spoke with the duo's press manager, the two climbers while descending from the peak encountered a rock and began sliding down a rope one end of which was secured from above and the other wound round the body of the climbers.
When they are at a height of around 8,500 m, the anchor broke, making Olsson hurtle down. When Granheim, who was following, reached the spot, all he could see was Olsson's ice axe.
Granheim, however, managed to ski down without mishap and had descended to 6,500 m, according to the website.
In 2004, both of them had succeeded in skiing down the Himalayan Mt Cho Oyo, the sixth highest peak in the world at 8,201 m, an expedition that inspired them to attempt the Everest descent.
